[Juzt]

This problem has a back story so please bear with me. Several weeks ago my computer stopped booting into Windows XP. Instead I would get a black screen with nothing but the cursor on it. Attempting to do anything from there, like opening the task manager, didn't work. The safe modes and the last good configuration didn't work either.

I learned that the problem could be caused by certain Windows files being damaged. So I tried a repair install. The Window installation disk would load several normally before saying something like "Starting Windows", hanging for a bit and then giving me a 0x7B error.

After several more attempts to diagnose and fix the problem, I gave up. Thinking it would get rid of whatever bad data or possible viruses were preventing XP and the installation disk from booting, I reformatted the hard drive. I then tried to do a fresh install but got the same 0x7B error. I fear that the problem wasn't anything on the drive but the drive itself. Does my problem sound like anything that can be fixed or should I get a new hard drive for Christmas?

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Hard drives are cheap these days and its usually just as quick to buy a new drive. At least if it falls over in the same way you can blame the main board and use the new drive on a new board.

[Neil Jones]

Hard drives are cheap these days and its usually just as quick to buy a new drive. At least if it falls over in the same way you can blame the main board and use the new drive on a new board.

[lurky]

Download Disk Fitness Test from here, burn the image to a disk, and boot off of it to find out if the hdd is bad or not.
http://www.hitachigs...ownload.htm#DFT

Also, you might want to check your memory with Memtest. Same story on burning to disk and booting.
http://www.memtest86.com/

If both of those are fine, then look further. Honestly sounds like it may be a software issue. Does the OS disk you're using have SP2 on it?

[Juzt]

Memtest says my ram is fine and the Disk Fitness Test gave me a disposition code of 0x00. Also the Windows disk does have SP2 on it. I was using SP3 before all this began, so I thought maybe thats where the error came from but shouldn't that have been solved when I formated the drive?

[lurky]

Hard drive is probably fine. If anything I'd try the install with only one of your memory sticks in at a time. Also, do a full format not a quick one. Shouldn't make a difference, but who knows.

[Juzt]

Using only one memory stick at a time didn't work and I don't see any other options other than just formating the drive. But I think I might know what the problem is now. A while back I bought a SATA DVD drive, not knowing that it wasn't compatible with my motherboard. So I went out and got a card that you put into a PCI slot and then plug SATA devices into. The drives for it not being installed may be why I keep getting errors. But because the installation disk will only read floppies when you press F6 to load drives, I cant use the CD that came with the card. Im going to try putting the drives on a floppy and if not I'm going to put my old ATA CD drive back in and try installing again.

[Juzt]

Yeah, installing the drives stopped the 0x7B error. I just wish I had known that before I formated my hard drive. I still don't know what caused the original problem of Windows not booting but at least I can use my computer again.