I seem to run across this error when working with certain ESX based FreeBSD VMs (FreeBSD 7 and 8.0, 8.1). My suspicion is that the VMWare tools image that gets mounted when installing the guest tools is mismatching what the port expects, depending on the server's copy of VMWare Tools.

# cd /usr/ports/emulators/vmware-guestd6
# make install clean

--- (snip of normal compiling until the error below) ---

install: /usr/ports/emulators/vmware-guestd6/work/vmmemctl-only/vmmemctl.ko: No such file or directory
*** Error code 71

The good news is, its an easy fix, a little digging shows that the vmmemctl.ko file is there, just one directory back from where its expected to be. So we'll just move it to where it should be:

# cp /usr/ports/emulators/vmware-guestd6/work/vmmemctl.ko \
/usr/ports/emulators/vmware-guestd6/work/vmmemctl-only/
# make install clean

The port should install with no problems now!