XP SP3: STOP 0x0000007E (0xC000001D) (solved)
Update: If you arrived here, looking for a solution to a blue screen problem that started to occur on Feb 12th, 2010 - this is a different kind of problem. The solution to that can be found here: Heise Online (English). Basically, it is a side-effect of a Microsoft update (MS10-015) that triggers a flaw in an already present bootkit malware, which then leads to the blue screen of death problem.
From time to time (i. e. every workday ;-)) I still use Windows XP. Recently I kept getting complaints about the system partition being too full. I guess on all operating systems this can have all kinds of funny (or disastrous) effects, so I tried to clean up a little. Apart from the usual suspects (temporary internet files, some huge downloads on the desktop and the like) I noticed that there were literally dozens of $NtUninstall...$ folders containing the setup/uninstall files for a lot of updates that had accumulated over time.
I realized that those could be deleted, however I prefer having a "clean" system, so I went for Service Pack 3 first which should include all the individual patches anyway.
The SP3 network install package first complained about the RDP 6.0 MUI Pack (KB925877) being incompatible with SP3 and that I had to remove it first. Doing so via the Control Panel did not work for some reason: It disappeared from the list, however the SP3 setup still complained. I had to manually delete the registry key pointing to it (HLKM/Software/Microsoft/WindowsNT/CurrentVersion/Hotfix/KB925877) before the SP3 setup would start.
After a while it reported a successfully finished installation and asked for a reboot. So I did.... After the POST I got a quick glance at the XP boot screen which was very quickly replaced with a blue screen of death (official: "STOP error") with these details:
An attempt was made to execute to non-executable memory ... STOP: 0x000000FC (0xBA5038E8, 0xBE903964, 0xBA503848, 0x00000001) ...
I looked at my BIOS settings and found the "XD Technology" option set to "on". According to Intel's support glossary this is the "Execute Disable" feature, so I tried again having it switched off. This just replaced the error codes, the BSOD remained:
... STOP: 0x0000007E (0xC000001D, 0xF78DE8EA, 0xF78DE7F4, 0xF78DE4F0) ...
Neither Safe Mode nor regular boot succeeded. Using a different machine I came across some other people with the same problem. This forum entry gave me the necessary clue - probably one of the next things I would have tried anyway: It's a USB driver problem. I removed all USB peripherals - good thing to have a PS/2 keyboard lying around and that "legacy" port on your mainboard - and Windows immediately booted normally. I did not try to reattach the USB devices, but went right to the device manager and removed everything in the USB category. Even without another reboot I just let it then search modified hardware, having it re-detect all the stuff I had removed a minute before. One more reboot, with everything attached an everything is back to normal. Now I can finally delete the superfluous files for which I started this whole odyssey...
Comments
Marco, Italy
Thank you Daniel.
Rudhy, Indonesia
After scouring the web, (along with many others apparently with the same problem),and being directed often to the Microsoft site or some other non-helpful site, I came upon your blog. Thanks much for posting the solution.
Alan, DC
Thanks for the tip.
Any other ideas?
Hope this helps!
Hope that helps anyone is a similar situation.
Many, many thanks to everybody, much appreciated.