Hello
First to check - you are sure the cold clone has done its job and you have the virtual disks created, formatted, and with data on them, right?
If everything's OK so far, then it is indeed the reconfiguration that you need to do.
The advice of booting a live installation ISO is right, I would just recommend it to be the same version (i.e. 5.03) rather than the newest, at least same major version.
Another thing is to ensure the GOS can work with the new virtual hardware. Check the disk and network controller (first the disk controller). If the GOS supports any of the VMware disk controllers, use it. Otherwise you'll probably need to add some module.
HTH
Plamen