I did not reinflate it, so that may be the issue. I'll try that possibly tonight after a preclear is complete on a new drive.
Also, on the flash drive, I replaced license.txt, make_bootable.bat, memtest, menu.c32, readme.txt, and syslinux.exe in addition to the 3 files mentioned. The others shouldn't matter with the exception of the menu.c32 file which I think has the new safe mode option. Within the VMDK, I replaced the 3 files, plus memtest and menu.c32. Inside the VMDK are only those 5 files.
I figure I did something wrong somewhere because RC15a is working good for everyone else. I'll try your inflate suggestion when the server is in a state to shutdown.
Thanks,
Jesse