I started using Core Data for iPhone development. I started out by creating a very simple entity (called Evaluation) with just one string property (called evaluationTopic).
Had same issue and it use to work, until I copied the code to another folder in finder and started editing that project, starting getting the error. What fixed it was my other project had a storecordinator with name xyz.sqlite, the "new" project I was working on had same name, had to change it to xyzv2.sqlite (something like that). Found answer here: http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/forum/iphone-sdk-development/27268-nspersistentstorecoordinator-has-no-persistent-stores.html