Windows Server 2003 BSOD with STOP: 0x0000007B
- When booting up Windows Server 2003, I get a BSOD with STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF789EA98, 0x0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
When I boot up in Safe Mode, the last file that is displayed is ACPITABL.DAT. Googling "ACPITABL.DAT", there seems to be two different schools of thought as to the cause of this problem:
1) Bad SATA device driver
2) Incorrect ACPI bios settingsI re-ran setup updating the the SATA device driver but to no avail. I also tried changing the bios ACPI settings, disabling cache, and removing/disabling all non-essential devices and interfaces but that didn't work either.
Configuration:ASUS P4B533-E motherboard with Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.26GHz uniprocessor w/1gb ram
Silicon Image 3114 SATARaid Controller Card (in non-raid mode)
Disk 0 - Maxtor 51024U2 (10gb) ATA - Basic Disk
Disk 1 - Western Digital WD1200JB (120gb) ATA - Dynamic Disk
Disk 2 - Western Digital WD1200JB (120gb) ATA - Basic Disk
Disk 3 - Seagate 3500630AS (500gb) SATA - Dynamic Disk
Disk 4 - Seagate 3500630AS (500gb) SATA - Dynamic Disk
Disk 5 - Maxtor 6Y160M0 (160gb) SATA - Basic DiskDisk 1 active partition/volume boots to Windows 2000 Professional
Disk 2 active partition boots to Windows Server 2008 (setup failed)
Disks 3/4 contains mirrored volumes. Active partition/volume boots to Windows Server 2003
Background:This system was working fine until I attempted to install Windows Server 2008 onto Disk 2. I previously was able to boot into Windows Server 2003 on Disk 3 and Windows 2000 Professional on Disk 1 by toggling the bios boot sequence.
After installing Windows Server 2008, I attempted to modify the bios and hit reset instead of gracefully exiting bios configuration. This caused the bios to reset itself to default values.
I'm not sure if the problem was introduced by the failed Windows Server 2008 install or the accidental bios reset, but from this point on, I get the following STOP messages when I boot up:
Windows Server 2003 (Disk 3) STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF789EA98, 0x0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
Windows 2000 Professional (Disk 1) STOP: 0x0000006F (0xC000003A, 0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED
Corrective Steps Attempted:1) I ran bootsect /n52 on the active partition/volume on Disk 1 in order to backout the Windows Server 2008 boot manager but still get the BSOD STOP: 0x0000006F (0xC000003A, 0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0x00000000) SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED when booting Windows 2000 Professional on Disk 1.
2) I ran chkdsk /f on Disk3 and found no errors.
3) I broke the mirrored Windows Server 2003 volume, ran Windows Server 2003 setup, pressing F6 to load a Silicon Image 3114 device driver (1.5.15.0), and updated the OS on Disk 3. The device driver is apparently good enough for setup to successfully complete but when I boot up, I still get the BSOD with STOP: 0x0000007B.
4) I ran Windows Server 2003 setup, pressing F6 to load the same Silicon Image 3114 device driver as above, and installed a new OS on Disk 5. I was able to successfully boot up this OS.
5) I removed all non-essential adapter cards and disabled all interfaces in bios, including IDE, but still get the BSOD with STOP: 0x0000007B when booting up Windows Server 2003 on Disk 3.
6) I tried toggling various bios power settings but still get the above bsods when booting Disks 1, and 3.
Summary:I can successfully install and boot up a fresh copy of Windows Server 2003 onto a basic disk using a Silicon Image 3114 device driver, but I can't boot up an existing version of Windows Server 2003 from a dynamic disk, using the same device driver.
I suspect that my problem is either a bad bios setting, Windows Server 2003 setup is not correctly updating dynamic disks, or Windows Server 2008 has corrupted something.
Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Answers
Hello,
This sounds like the boot sector or some system files are corrupted due to the unfinished installation of Windows Server 2008.
Usually, a forced shutdown may cause the corruption to certain system files and the file system. It is possible that file corruption existed on the server to some degree and the dirty shutdown exposed the underlying issue even more.
So, if possible, the better resolution to this may be recovering the sever from the backup media.
Here is article just for some general troubleshooting steps on this error:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324103
However, if all of these steps do not work, an analysis of the crash dump file may be needed. To trouble shoot this problem efficiently, I suggest that you speak directly with a Microsoft Support Professional so that the crash dump can be analyzed. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services phone numbers and information about support costs, please go to the following address on the World Wide Web:
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/overview.asp
Thank you for your understanding and I hope this will be resolved soon.
Best regards,
Chang Yin
- Marked As Answer byChang Yin Sunday, July 06, 2008 9:05 AM
- 07B is a PIA. In this case, it is your SATA drive. You have to DISABLE the SATA in the BIOS before it will work, install the image and THEN you can reenable it. Been there, done that, got the battle scars.
- Marked As Answer byChang Yin Sunday, July 06, 2008 9:04 AM
All Replies
Hello,
This sounds like the boot sector or some system files are corrupted due to the unfinished installation of Windows Server 2008.
Usually, a forced shutdown may cause the corruption to certain system files and the file system. It is possible that file corruption existed on the server to some degree and the dirty shutdown exposed the underlying issue even more.
So, if possible, the better resolution to this may be recovering the sever from the backup media.
Here is article just for some general troubleshooting steps on this error:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324103
However, if all of these steps do not work, an analysis of the crash dump file may be needed. To trouble shoot this problem efficiently, I suggest that you speak directly with a Microsoft Support Professional so that the crash dump can be analyzed. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services phone numbers and information about support costs, please go to the following address on the World Wide Web:
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/overview.asp
Thank you for your understanding and I hope this will be resolved soon.
Best regards,
Chang Yin
- Marked As Answer byChang Yin Sunday, July 06, 2008 9:05 AM
- I can understand a failed Windows Server 2008 setup corrupting the boot sector on the disk where it is being installed (Disk 2), but why would it find a need to update the boot sector on other disks (Disk 1, Disks 3/4)? I ran bootsect /n52, so wouldn't that have restored the Windows Server 2003 boot sector?
If Windows Server 2008 setup is indeed attempting modifications on all bootable disks with no recovery, then one would be wise to take all other bootable disks offline so as to prevent a total loss of all oS's such as what I am experiencing. Certainly, it would make sense for Microsoft to at least warn customers of this possibility.
Also, I suspect that it will not be possible to get a crash dump since Windows Server 2003 does not appear capable of writing to the file system. To wit, boot logging is enabled and a message is displayed that boot logging is in effect, but no boot log is written.
Thanks for your help.
Steve Lang - 07B is a PIA. In this case, it is your SATA drive. You have to DISABLE the SATA in the BIOS before it will work, install the image and THEN you can reenable it. Been there, done that, got the battle scars.
- Marked As Answer byChang Yin Sunday, July 06, 2008 9:04 AM
- I'm getting this error with Microsoft's ERD 2007 as well, on Dell Optiplex 745 and 755.
What happens if all the drives (CD/DVD) are SATA? :p
Pretty much stuck? - I ran into the same issue:
acpitabl.dat last file loaded when trying Safe Mode reboot. Blue screen showed 0x0000007B (0xF78A2A94, 0xC0000034,0,0)
SCSI drives multi controller env.
Tried to update driver on 2nd scsi controller and server crashed.
Could not reboot:
Final fix is silly: Added OS 2003 standard server CD into CD rom and rebooted, when it asked to push any key to boot from CD, do NOT push it. It rebooted.
Hope this might help somebody else out.
Beerli, Marcel

