Just recently I had been working on a couple of laptops that needed to be rebuilt for a client.
We didn’t have any of the original restoration media so I went a head and started installing Windows XP from OEM media (SP3). However on both laptops, when installed Windows XP from CD, just after the point when it loaded all the drivers and then states on the bottom of the screen “Starting Windows XP Setup”, the laptops would blue screen with a STOP ERROR 0x0000007b.
When doing a Google search on this error, you will likely find this Microsoft Support article (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324103) with a list of troubleshooting advise. All of which was no help.
I soon however found an article (http://bit.ly/b7hg7C) that mentioned of a user who had experienced issues with AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) enabled and installing Windows XP. At first I was sceptical, but thought to check anyway. In the BIOS I found that SATA controller was set to AHCI mode. I had the option of setting it to IDE Mode. After configuring it to IDE mode, saving and rebooting, I was then able to install Windows XP without error.
AHCI is an advanced configuration for disk controllers for communicating and controlling the disks, a feature that is NOT natively supported by Windows XP. So, when the Windows XP Setup loads and begins calling on the drives, this is where the kernel errors out and produces the STOP error.
Links:
Wikipedia – Advanced Host Controller Interface (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface)