Constant BSOD & Reboot on startup of Dell Windows 7

For the last couple of weeks (I was just given the laptop) my friends Dell Inspiron has been Blue Screen of Death'ing on start then rebooting (loop on this) - I was able to see the BSOD when I disabled the "reboot on error" and all I get is the following:
Blue Screen STOP: 0x0000007B

I cannot get into Safe Mode (same error) to get any dumps (at least I wouldn't know how)

I tried Startup Recovery, Last known configuration, Restor points (many of them), Chkdsk, sfc, and bootsec but nothing seems to resolve the problem... The next step is a re-install from the Dell Recovery drive (I hope because I don't have the origial Windows 7 Dell Install CD), but obviously I would like to avoid that...

Any other ideas?
Any helps/hints would be appreciated.
Thanks,

Hi shaitan (nice name and welcome to SF

STOP 0x0000007B: INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE
Which means your Dell simply doesn't find/can make use of it's Boot drive.
You could run Sea Tools to check the hardware
SeaTools for DOS | Seagate
(burn to a CD with IMGBurn, change the BIOS to start from CD/DVD, pop in the disk and see if the drive is found. if so, run the short and the long test)

If you can get to a command line, run as Administrator and do a chkdisk C: /f /x (to exclude a damaged file system...substitute c: with whatever is your boot drive

If it's not the hardware,then it could be caused by a virus so just let's rewrite the MasterBootRecord (MBR)

How to fix MBR in Windows 7? | Windows 7 Themes
If that gets you back on track you most certainly need to run some extensive Virus checks
load this and run a full scan
Malwarebytes : Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a free download that removes viruses and malware from your computer
you also might want to exchange your actual A/V solution for something that works.
When you're at that point, let us know what was used until now so we could recommend s/th better.


-DG

I ran chkdsk (no errors), I am also able to backup all files (booted off ubunto and copied the entire C:\ drive to a USB HDD - no errors) - so I guess it isn't hardware related. Tried incase

I just tried bootrec and it didn't help (still getting the same error).

Seeing as I can't get into windows at all not sure how to run any A/V on it (always possible but ... not sure how I would manage this).

Any other ideas?
Thanks,

Of course the A/V was meant for the time the error is fixed as I wrote.
Is the machine in question the Laptop or are we talking about a desktop here?

Because if s/o changes the SATA Mode of the boot drive to use AHCI or RAID features and boots before enabling the disk driver first, you'll get exactly that error message

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

Latop (Dell Inspiron) - and I played with those BIOS settings already (no changes), also changed the windows registry (services) and nada.

I'm slowly running out of ideas here
I trust the drive is set correctly in BIOS. Have you tried to reverse the setting (to IDE, Legacy, ATA or Compatibility mode or whatever it's called in your BIOS)
Have you tried to clear the CMOS and load the safe defaults?

If nothing helps and nobody has a better idea I'm afraid you're stuck with the factory reset.

I wish I could do a factory reset - that option isn't there when I do REPAIR either

perhaps that helps

Restoring Your Computer´s Software to the Factory Settings | Dell