Stop 0x0000007B after converting an existing XP machine to a Virtual Machine (ESXi, Hyper-V, or other)
Posted by jpluimers on 2022/03/22
In 2015, I posted P2V of an existing XP machine to Hyper-V to have an emergency fallback when retiring old XP physical machines and did a short edit on 20210727 promising about a future article on trying to fix the [Wayback] stop 0x0000007B blue screen.
This stop can that can happen during boot when the converted Windows XP requires different disk drivers than the physical Windows XP. Windows Vista and up are smarter to figure out the required changes, but Windows XP wasn’t.
The above screenshot is actually from the same physical Windows XP machine after doing the conversion, I wanted to try and run the virtual machine on physical hardware close to the original before moving it to the actual VMware host (yup, the Windows XP machine had been used as a VMware host before, so it had both VMware Workstation 6.5 and VMware Converter 4.01 installed).
The reason I wanted to move my last Windows XP machine to a virtual machine was that it was the only computer that could still print to my old, but nice, Olympus P-400 color dye sublimation printer. I mentioned this in 2015 when Installing the PIXMA mini260 – Canon Europe drivers under Windows 8.1 x64 – trying to say goodbye to Windows XP
I need to find a way to get my [Wayback/Archive.is] Olympus Camedia P-400 Digital Color Photo Printer. That is a lot harder: the latest Windows [Wayback] P-400 Printer > Software Downloads are for Windows XP.
At the end, of the blog post are a few links on the stop 0x0000007B and the Universal Boot CD for Windows workaround.
As promised, the links that helped me with this workaround:
- [Wayback] Jon’s Project Blog » disk2vhd
If you get the “
0x0000007B” BSOD error during boot, just grab UBCD4Win, boot it up, and then run Fix_hdc. It should be in Start>Programs>Registry Tools>FIX_hdc>Fix Hard disk/USB - [Wayback] Move Windows XP Hard Drive or Change Motherboard Without Getting a Blue Screen
STOP 7BError • Raymond.CC - Booting a VMware virtual machine from CD is tricky as the BIOS wait delay is very short, which I explained in vmware Fusion/Workstation/ – How can you boot from CD? – Super User
Basically the boot delay during startup is so short that usually you cannot even choose the boot device.
Solution: edit the
.vmxconfiguration file for the virtual machine, then change this value:bios.bootDelay = "15000" -
VMware Workstation 6.5.3 power-on to BIOS
Another issue is getting into the BIOS settings, which in older VMware versions was easier and seems to be a
.vmxconfiguration file only setting now (that gets reset to"FALSE"after each boot), see [Wayback] Problems with installing guest systems on 6.5 – VMware Technology Network VMTN:Open BIOS settings on next boot:
bios.forceSetupOnce = "TRUE" - Fix HDC (Fix Hard Disk Controller) script by cdob:
- UBCD based
- [Wayback] UBCD for Windows (in order to create the actual ISO image, it requires an Windows XP SP3 ISO or CD to start with: lots of pain)
- Classic (Older) Hirens Boot CD: direct ISO download which is way easier
- [Wayback] Old Versions | Hiren’s BootCD PE
- [Wayback] https://www.hirensbootcd.org/files/Hirens.BootCD.15.2.zip (initially didn’t work with VMware Workstation 6.5.3 due to the 100 Mbit/s network card causing damaged file transfers; luckily a
md5sumandsha1sumdetected that after pulling some hairs out) - [Wayback] https://www.hirensbootcd.org/files/Hirens.BootCD.10.2.zip (is way smaller, some 180 megabytes instead of some 600 megabytes, but already had the Fix HDC in it)
- [Wayback] https://www.hirensbootcd.org/files/Hirens.BootCD.15.2.zip (initially didn’t work with VMware Workstation 6.5.3 due to the 100 Mbit/s network card causing damaged file transfers; luckily a
- [Wayback] Old Versions | Hiren’s BootCD PE
- Background information on Fix HDC by author cdob, and what is does via [Wayback] “Fix HDC – Google Search, [Wayback] Fix_hdc – Google Search and [Wayback] fix_hdc cdob – Google Search:
- [Wayback] [SOLVED] Moving Windows XP to new hardware – Windows Forum – Spiceworks
Jul 29, 2013 at 5:31 PM
Use Hiren’s BootCD.
When you boot from the disk select the Mini XP mode and then under the Hiren’s programs look for the Fix HDC.
- [Wayback] Windows Device Console (Devcon.exe) – Windows drivers | Microsoft Docs
- [Wayback] Advanced advice for Stop error 7B, Inaccessible_Boot_Device – Windows Client Management | Microsoft Docs
- [Wayback] P2V Migration Issues with Hyper-V: STOP: 0x0000007B | Microsoft Docs (manual description of all the registry changes that Fix HDC does)
- via [Wayback] [SOLVED] Create a virtual machine from a readable hard disk drive from a fried server – Spiceworks – Page 3 which has the
Fix_HDC.cmdscript file embedded - I saved the [Wayback]
fix_hdcsource code in a [Wayback]fix_hdc.cmdrepository on Gitlab.
- via [Wayback] [SOLVED] Create a virtual machine from a readable hard disk drive from a fried server – Spiceworks – Page 3 which has the
- [Wayback] Remember the fix hdc-plugin? – Win7PE – reboot.pro
- [Archive.is] [HELP!]Blue screen when loading Windows7. can boot into Windows 8. | Tom’s Hardware Forum
- [Wayback] FIX_HDC needs TXTSETUP.SIF for Win7x64 DP_MassStorage_wnt6-x64 (Page 1) – Windows 7 Discussion – DriverPacks.net Forum (with comment from cdob, the
Fix_HDC.cmdauthor) - [Wayback] Motherboard swap – having some issues loading Win7 – Windows 7
- [Wayback] Move Windows XP Hard Drive or Change Motherboard Without Getting a Blue Screen STOP 7B Error • Raymond.CC – Page 2 (based on this, I created the screenshots below)
- …
- Boot up the computer with Hiren. You need to go into the BIOS to change the boot sequence if your computer can’t boot up the computer with a CD, or press a hotkey such as F11 to reach the boot device selection dialog.
- Select the second option down, “Mini Windows XP” from the menu and load Mini XP.
- Once loaded, click on the Hiren menu icon in the system tray and go to Registry -> “Fix hard disk controller (
fix_hdc.cmd)”. - Press the T key, then enter and type in the TargetRoot folder. The default would be C:Windows but might be different on multiboot systems, in which case you would need to check in Windows Explorer what the correct drive letter is.
- Hit the M key on your keyboard to select Update
MassStoragedrivers and press enter. - When it’s finished, press any key to continue and restart the computer.
- FixIDE:
- [Wayback] Motherboard swap – having some issues loading Win7 – Windows 7
- [Wayback] FixIDE – d7xTech.com (formerly Foolish IT)
FixIDE is a utility to force-install standard IDE controller drivers on a ‘offline’ Windows XP installation. Current Version: 1.0 Purpose: To save you from a repair-install of Windows …
- [Wayback] [SOLVED] Moving Windows XP to new hardware – Windows Forum – Spiceworks
- For Windows 7, there is
Fix_7HDC.vbs: [Wayback] Resolving BSOD (STOP: 0x0000007B) after a motherboard swap- [Wayback] Hirens boot CD – can’t find “Fix HDC” – Windows
- [Wayback] Error message occurs after you change the SATA mode of the boot drive
Describes an issue in which you receive a
"STOP 0x0000007B INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE"error message when you start Windows Vista or Windows 7 after you change the SATA mode of the boot controller. A resolution is provided.
Some more of my blog posts around the VMware Converter software:
- VMware Standalone Converter: more recent versions do not support older operating systems
- Windows XP: changing the HAL to support multiple cores (actually: two CPUs)
Screenshots of the Fix_hdc.cmd process using Hiren’s boot CD are below the signature and line.
–jeroen
- Mount the Hiren’s BootCD, then boot from that CD-ROM Drive:
- Do not boot from the default menu selection:
- Boot from the Mini Windows Xp instead:
- Wait for the text mode boot initialisation to finish:
- Wait for the graphical boot initialisation to finish:
- Observe the Hiren’s BootCD menu is on the lower right part in the notification area:
- There, choose “Registry” followed by “Fix hard disk controller (fix_hdc.cmd)”:
- Unlike the menu order, first choose “TargetRoot” to set in which “Windows” target root directory the registry settings of the MassStorage drivers should be adjusted.
- After choosing “Set TargetRoot”, fill in the “Windows” root directory, which usually is “C:\Windows” (if not, use the “My Computer” desktop icon to figure out the required “TargetRoot”:
- Back in the menu, now choose the “MassStorage” option:
- Wait for the registry modifications to be finished, then “Press any key to continue…”:
- Using the “My Computer” icon, check the set “TargetRoot” for the registry modifications to have taken place:
- Inside the “TargetRoot” (in this case “C:\Windows”), browse to “system32\config” and look for the “SYSTEM” and “SYSTEM.fix_hdc” registry files:
- Now from the “Start” menu, “Shut Down” the system:
- Confirm Shutdown:
If you don’t set a TargetRoot, then fixing the MassStorage drivers fails:
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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