Well, after trying any and all things I found something that worked.
Having spent many years in, around and under IT I rebooted the OS then tried it again. This time I ran
the diagnostics option for repair which I thought would just be testing virtual HDD, RAM and what not but actually went through OK'd everything and rebooted. It rebooted normally. I shut down the VM and restarted and it loaded without an hiccup. I made a snapshot to be safe and will continue to test.
Last edited: May 20, 2015