Wait, isn't 0x0000007B INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE?

If it is, I have a feeling madmatt is probably right.

He said

My neighbor messed up his windows installation somehow. He installed some drivers and afterwords the PC (Windows XP Home) would BSOD (0x0000007B).

mmmm....The computer may keep restarting and never start the GUI installation after the text mode Setup is finished.

it could also be a bootsector virus. they these commands in the recovery console it wont hurt the PC and could be a quick fix if this is the issue or is is the driver issue I thought it maybe.

chkdsk /r
fixmbr
fixboot

The STOP message I mentioned was the cause of all the trouble, which randomly occurred after installing new drivers (for the DVD burner or something, not too sure. It wasn't me doing it). I could read the harddrive with Linux, copied the partition successfully.

So as I said, when I try to install Windows from a retail cd it will keep rebooting, though it does detect the Hard drive in the setup wizard beforehand. However, it only did detect the physical drive I now realize, and consequentially I have destroyed the Dell system partitions before and after the Windows partition that were still there before, maybe this is contributing to the problem.

I tried one more thing. When I get to the advanced boot options menu, and try any of the LKGC options etc, and then proceed to boot, the following error message flashes by quickly (used a video camera to read it): NTDETECT failed. Then it reboots.

So I started the XP cd again, went into Recovery console, and could not read c: because of an enumeration error. I then did format c: /q /fs:ntfs, and copied NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM into the new partition. I then started the installation and told it to leave the filesystem alone and install over it. After this, the PC no longer continuously restarts, but it says:

A disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

So that's where I am now.


I would install the OEM drivers if I had any system CDs. If I had the system CD, I would just restore from that. Which drivers would I need to get from the Dell site to fix this? I'll try to use a USB drive.

what model is the Dell PC? this is the issue for sure I will find the driver for you.

Got your solution then, probably.

Slap in the repair disk, and type these into the prompt:

COPY X:\i386\NTLDR C\:
COPY X:\i386\NTDETECT.COM C:\

X is the letter of your drive. Remove the CD, type exit, then reboot your machine and see if that has fixed it.

I'm now trying the mbr commands. You guys are helping faster than I can keep up with

When I do fixmbr, it says "This computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid MBR. FIXMBR may damage partition tables etc etc, this could cause all the partitions to become inaccessible."

I assume this is due to the Dell partitions, but they are gone anyway so I'm just going to go ahead.

Fixboot did not work, it could not find the system drive.
C: is once again unreadable by DIR: An error occurred during directory enumeration.

This is exactly the solution I found and tried earlier

However, the situation this was posted in was different. In the case I found it in, the system was still intact. In my case, the system is formatted and Windows is absent anyway.

After every reboot, C: is unreadable, so I can't do this. Setup never finishes either.