I am working on a Dell Dimension 4700. When I first began working on this PC Windows XP would loop right before the login screen. I tried to boot Hiren's Boot CD from the CD drive but could not boot from either CD drive (there are two). I was resigned to booting from a flash drive. This worked however some apps in Hiren's would not work, most notably trying to start the Recovery Console. This app would only loop. I then tried the text version of Ultimate Boot CD. After much frustration, I ultimately ran Boot 'n Nuke in the hope of wiping the drive and re-installing Windows. The wipe was successful. However, when I tried to install XP (from a flash drive, incidentally), right after Startup says, "Starting Windows", I get BSOD (specifically STOP: 0x0000007B (0xFCB0524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)). I went back and check for a partition on the drive, there was none. I ran KillDisk and tried the Windows install with the same results. I am at my wit's end! The HDD in question is a Maxtor 6Y080M0, 180GB, SATA architecture. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Your HDD maybe bad or the boot sectors may have risers in them. Check out GRC, Steve Gibsons Spine Rite and that can solve your problems and answer your questions. You can find this at: grc.com

Jay

I'll give it a shot but it seems very odd I seem to only have issues when Windows attempts to load in any way, shape, or form.