Correct! I ran in to the same issue converting a physical Win XP machine to virtual that the original install had been on a SATA drive so Windows had a SATA controller loaded in the devices which Workstation picked up when the VHD was attached (I used Disk2VHD to virtualise the drive as the machine was not bootable so had to be imaged as an attached drive). Installing VMWare tools cleared all the driver issues except this one PCI device - hardware ID PCI\VEN_15AD&DEV_07E0&SUBSYS_07E015AD&REV_00
THE FIX - edit your config settings and set sata0:0.present = "FALSE". It was set to true in mine hence Windows XP detecting a SATA drive which doesn't exist and for which there are no VM drivers to install. No more found new hardware on boot annoyances. This assumes your VHD was attached as an IDE device (recommended - I had experimenting with SCSI and F6ing the virtual floppy SCSI drivers VMWare provide on a repair install - did not work and gave the usual 7D BSOD on login).
Had to register for the community just to post this - hope it helps somebody!