Hi I got a new motherboard couple of days ago - installed it as i normally do with win98, but get the 0x0000007b message. Know what it is for have looked around the net for solutions, but all i get is how to prevent that, but cant get a solution to get me back into windows again. Anyone got any solutions. I did press F6 during installing win XP and installed ide drivers on a floppy from the mb manufactorer, but it didnt work. Was the reason the way i have the computer set up? I have a 40 GB hd set up as master drive label C - this is my back up drive not my boot drive. Then i have a 120 GB as the slave which is partitioned. Drive D is a small partition on that 120 drive and then drive E is the main partition on the 120 GB drive which i use as the boot with windows on it. I have the Bios pointing to the hd1 ok. Would appreciate any help to getting the system back again. Thanks M

you've probably looked at this, but it explains the error. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q324103

It's a common problem, with an easy solution. Boot to your Xp cd ensuring cdrom is set as 1st boot device in your BIOS. Once at the setup screen run a repair installation of Xp over the top of your current install, that will fix the problem without losing any settings or data. You may have to reactivate Xp again once you are done, nature of MS's beast unfortunately.

Hi mate - yea was just going to ask the post before you about the repair. When i boot up using the cd i get options to either install or repair or recover - can remenber which but it is done by pressing the "r" key. When i press that i end up at a prompt on my main drive e:\windows - and then all i can do is to execute commands there. Read about a repair that exits on teh install screen - but i have going into the point of installing, highlighted the main E drive - pressed "R" but nothing happens. How do i get it to repair rather than leaving me there at a dos prompt? Also when i choose to reinstall it warns me that all data will be lost. I would not mind that but i have important data on that that i cant loose. Thanks for help M

Yeah, there are two ways, sorry, should have explained a bit better! Forget the command prompt, that is to say, don't press "r". Instead of pressing "r" just make like u were doing a fresh install, when u get to the "select partition to install Xp on" stage, select the partition Xp is ALREADY on and click OK. You will then see a message along the lines of "Xp already on this partition, would u like to repair?" yes, you would!

Mate - you wil not believe how that makes me feel that there is a possiblilty of getting this. lol been working 12 hour shifts 9 pm - 9 am al week - wrecked frustrated and about to jump lol But cant wait till get home and try this. Thanks a million mate - appreciate your help M

Anything to help a fellow stressee m8, lol, good luck.