Sorry it took me so long to respond. I've had Internet outages.
This was definitely a new one for me as well. I've never seen this happen on any platform or any VM software.
I imaged the ISO file from my Windows 7 installation CD (since my machine doesn't have an optical drive in it) using another machine (with an optical drive). I also tried an image of my 32 Bit Windows 7 installation CD and even a Windows 8 installation image with no luck either.
Bad news is, I chatted with my hardware manufacturer, and they don't support virtualization under Ubuntu. My processor supports hardware virtualization (over VT), but under Ubuntu, hardware virtualization isn't enabled.
So I may have to forgoe the VM route and simply dual boot Windows and Ubuntu. A little clunkier, but it seems like the most solid way to go. I could possibly reverse my setup, but since I want to spend more time in Ubuntu and less time in Windows, I really don't want to virtualize Ubuntu on Windows. Either the other way around or just dual boot.
Thanks for your help though! I appreciate it and wish I had better news.