Win7 Can't Boot or Safe Boot any disk/part due to STOP 0x0000007B

I can no longer boot 64-bit Win 7 Pro in normal or Safe Mode on one computer due to BSOD: STOP 0x0000007B (0XFFFF880009A97E8, 0XFFFFFFFFC0000034, 0, 0).

But there is additional, extremely important info: I have two separate month-old backup boot partitions, and they won't boot either for exactly the same reason! One is on a second partition of the main SSD (my regular boot partition is on the first partition), and the other is on a regular hard disk. Therefore, it's extremely unlikely that this is a disk drive or partition problem.

The last thing I did was use AutoRuns to disable some unwanted startups my startup manager (Chameleon Startup Manager) didn't see and thus couldn't disable. However, as I said above, I have two separate month-old backup boot partitions, and I made no changes whatsoever to these, so surely one or the other should boot fine, but I get the same BSOD on all boot partitions!

What I've done so far:

- Ran Startup Repair 6 times total. Each time it reports that it could not repair the problem.

- Tried system restore. It reported every restore attempt failed.

- Booted up with LSoft Active @ Boot Disk, latest version (15.x). Then I ran Check Disk on all disks and partitions, and no problems were reported anywhere. Then I examined all the disks and partitions, and the reports said everything is perfect: all partitions were of the right type, and the integrity of all disks were ideal. Then I ran it's MemTest for 8 hours with no problems.

- Confirmed the BCD store for all disks were setup correctly.

- Disconnected various hard disks and tested via trial and error if this helped. It never did.

- I've confirmed I have the latest BIOS installed.

Note that this BSOD occurs so early in the boot process that it does not produce any dump files, so I can't post them.

Note also that the system booted perfectly immediately prior to the AutoRuns changes to the main boot partition, so the odds are ridiculously low that this is any kind of hardware-related problem. At the same time, the odds are ridiculously low that a software problem is the cause given that the other two backup boot partitions won't boot either and give the same BSODs when I try to boot them. It would thus seem that if there is such a low probability of either a hardware or software problem, then my system should at least boot one of the backups, but it won't! I'm baffled!

What can I try next?

Golden said:

0x7B's are often caused by physical disk failure. Remove the disk and install it into another computer. Now use SeaTools for DOS to check the drive. Unfortunately that is the only option available.

SeaTools for DOS and Windows - How to Use

Thank you for your reply, Golden, but I get the exact same 0x7B BSOD on EVERY disk - Seven of them so far, some internal SATA 3's and some External USB 3's, so it can't even be a bad disk or even a bad disk controller!

This one's a real stumper! Anything else I could examine?

Weird suggestion: PSU. I've fixed boot issues on one of my PCs this way before now. Identified it by hot-plugging USB devices. Are there any internal/external power-drawing components you could do without to reduce demand?

r44712 said:

Weird suggestion: PSU. I've fixed boot issues on one of my PCs this way before now. Identified it by hot-plugging USB devices. Are there any internal/external power-drawing components you could do without to reduce demand?

Thanks, r44712! I definitely like weird suggestions, especially for such a weird problem!

This was a weird problem, but I solved it differently, which I'll describe below...

Problem solved, and as I kept insisting, there was NO disk or other hardware problem! Also, the BSOD 0x7B was pretty much incidental and irrelevant, so I wish this thread had stayed where it was...

Since I was desperate and wasn't getting any help that actually addressed the actual problem, I started changing BIOS settings pretty much by random trial and error. When I changed the "Secure Boot" setting from "Windows (efi?)" to "Other OS", all my boot partitions suddenly started booting perfectly again!

So the BSOD was irrelevant and merely hinted that some particularly obscure setting might be amiss and there was no hardware problem of any kind.

Thenin said:

Problem solved, and as I kept insisting, there was NO disk or other hardware problem! Also, the BSOD 0x7B was pretty much incidental and irrelevant, so I wish this thread had stayed where it was...

Since I was desperate and wasn't getting any help that actually addressed the actual problem, I started changing BIOS settings pretty much by random trial and error. When I changed the "Secure Boot" setting from "Windows (efi?)" to "Other OS", all my boot partitions suddenly started booting perfectly again!

So the BSOD was irrelevant and merely hinted that some particularly obscure setting might be amiss and there was no hardware problem of any kind.

COOL, What a way for a problem to get solved.