Windows XP Stop 0x0000007B during installation

Stop 0x0000007B is a common error in Windows and this page is about the error during the installation of Windows XP. You might have to search elsewhere for the many variations of 0x0000007B that occur after installation. This error is the result of BIOS changes and could occur after installation if you change your BIOS settings.

The following is the full text of the error I received. I was using the 64 bit version of XP, making the addresses 16 characters long. If you are using standard XP, 0x0000000000000000 would be 0x00000000.
Stop 0x0000007B (0xFFFFFADF2D0323C0, 0xFFFFFFFFC0000034, 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000)

Stop 0x0000007B

The first bit, Stop 0x0000007B, covers a lot of errors and they are usually mismatches between windows and the hardware caused by bad drivers. Drivers are the bits of software sitting between Windows and the hardware. Drivers give Windows the flexibility to handle any hardware. many hardware merchants rush hardware on to the market without testing the drivers supplied with the hardware.

Imagine flying in an aeroplane where the wings were added at the last moment by someone who had never previously seen the aeroplane and had no idea how much weight the aeroplane would carry or at what speed the aeroplane will fly.

I only know of a few people at Microsoft who were keen on quality and even less who tried to make Windows reliable. They all worked on NT, a project separate from Windows. Microsoft then killed NT and used scraps of NT in Windows. Some people left in frustration.

If you have a Stop 0x0000007B error on an installed system, the first question is Did you change BIOS settings?. If you did, you might have the save problem I struck during installation. For everything else, you may have to go back to searching the Internet.

0xFFFFFADF2D0323C0

The rest of the message is meaningless unless you are extremely lucky or are talking with a Microsoft engineer. The four addresses inside the brackets point to specific software loaded into Windows. the problem is the addresses can vary based on the range of software loaded and the order the software is loaded. The addresses are different between 32 bit Windows and 64 bit Windows. The addresses are different from service pack to service pack. They may change when you use Windows Update or install extra hardware with additional hardware drivers.

Additional drivers

If you use RAID or SCSI or anything else that is weird, you may have to install additional drivers when installing Windows. During the installation, a message appears at the bottom of the screen telling you to press F6 to add additional drivers. Those additional drivers can cause Stop 0x0000007B errors and you may have to get updated drivers from your hardware supplier or convert to Linux. (Ubuntu is the best version of Linux for first time converters.)

Installing without additional drivers

OK, you are installing and not using additional drivers. What causes that horrible Stop 0x0000007B?

In my case it was a BIOS setting.

First a little background. I am using an old computer that had Windows 2000 on it then I purchased XP 64 because I was tired of using only 3.5 gigabyte of the 8 GB of memory. XP 64 offered little of substantial improvement and created endless problems on a system updated from Windows 2000. I ended up restoring the Windows 2000 system.

Today I decided Windows 2000 is no longer viable because some interesting new software does not work on Windows 2000. Instead of updating my Windows 2000 machine to XP and getting a mess, I will create a clean installation of XP on a similar machine then copy across any files I need.

The test machine had SATA drives and the BIOS set to AHCI. AHCI was common before I purchased the XP 64 disk, the XP 64 disk had service packs applied, and I assumed Microsoft would keep up to date with hardware. WRONG!

In the BIOS the OnChip SATA Type was set to SATA->AHCI because that is the right way to do it in this century. Stop 0x0000007B!

I experimented with a lot of settings and eventually set OnChip SATA Type back to last century's Native IDE. The installation ran to completion without Stop errors.

Change nothing during an upgrade

Think like a Luddite. Change nothing during an installation or an upgrade. After you get the new Windows working, try one little change each week until you drag your Windows based system into this century then try for this millennium then this year. Do not try both BIOS changes and a Windows update at the same time.

Conclusion

Microsoft like using the oldest possible technology, similar to Debian Linux. Keep everything set to the old settings during an upgrade and experiment with only one little change at a time.