If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must
be the truth. You have shown good testing methodology to this point. What
remains is the SATA controller, the hard disk in a physical sense, and the
cable connecting the two as culprits. Start with the simple and inexpensive
fix of swapping SATA cables, then move to the controller. For the
controller, you should be able to disable the onboard in BIOS and install a
peripheral card.

Kenneth Whyman
[log in to unmask]
Chance favors the prepared mind.


On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:15 AM, Don Penlington <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I'm working on a 3-year old Acer Aspire computer which suddenly stopped
> booting into Vista.
>
> I tried to reinstall XP, intending to reformat when offered that option.
> But after copying the initial files and at the "Setup is starting Windows"
> stage---before any actual installation----- I got "Stop Error 0x0000007B
> (0xF899263c, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)".
>
> Googling  Stop Error 7B indicates a boot virus, or a failed Sata
> Controller, among other things.
>
> I removed the hard drive, inserted it into my computer, and reformatted its
> 2 partitions (full reformat). Checking disk size confirmed virtually the
> whole drive is now empty. I ran antivirus (Avira) and antimalware
> (Malwarebytes) scans on both partitions which both came up clean as
> expected.
>
> While the drive was still in my computer, I installed XP Pro SP1.  That
> went without a hitch and I now had dual-boot from the 2 hard drives. My
> computer booted perfectly into the new installation. I rebooted several
> times into both versions of XP, no problems. It therefore seems that the
> hard drive is fine.
>
> I then put the hard drive back into the Acer computer but upon rebooting it
> gave the same stop error before starting to load XP.  I then inserted the XP
> installation disk but trying to run the setup CD again gave the same stop
> error.
>
> Once more I removed the hard drive, inserted it back into my computer, and
> reformatted both its partitions again. This time I left the hard drive
> completely empty. I ran both security scans again.  All clean.
>
> Upon putting the hard drive back into the Acer, setting the boot order to
> boot from CD, and attempting to run the XP installation, again it loaded the
> setup files, then came up once more with the accursed same stop error before
> offering the usual options.
>
> I entered the BIOS and set it to optimised defaults, but that made no
> difference.
>
> Could it be that the Sata Controller on the motherboard has failed?  Is
> there a solution other than replacing the motherboard? Anything else I
> should try?
>
> Don Penlington
>
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