Thinkpads Forum

I urgently need your help.

With the incessant lousy noise coming from the fan of my X61, I ordered a new fan/heatsink unit from ebay and just installed it today. And I powered on the X61, and alas, I cannot boot into Windows 7.

This is what I ordered from ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Original-IB ... OC:US:3160

1. When I boot it up, I get 0xc000000e error.
2. Then, when I try to start up Windows normally, it now moves into a dreaded blue screen with 0x0000007B message.

All the while, the new fan seems working fine.

Can anyone give me a clue about what went wrong, and how I can fix this up? The FRU of the old fan unit is 42X3805.

Thank you.

Are you able to get into BIOS?

Welcome to the forum!
It sounds like your fan/heatsink replacement went fine. What you are describing has nothing to do with the fan.

However, it is possible that while you were working on the motherboard, the BIOS settings were reset, including the SATA setting changing to "Compatibility" mode. The SATA setting in the BIOS needs to be on "AHCI".

So, enter the BIOS by pressing F1 immediately after you power on the system, navigate to Config ... SATA settings ... and make certain the SATA setting is "AHCI". Then press F10, press "Y" save the settings, and let the machine boot normally.

EOMtp wrote: However, it is possible that while you were working on the motherboard, the BIOS settings were reset, including the SATA setting changing to "Compatibility" mode. The SATA setting in the BIOS needs to be on "AHCI".

Thank you so much for the welcome and for giving me a crucial clue.

I went into BIOS and checked the SATA setting. It was already at "AHCI," so I just tried "Compatibility". And voila, it booted up without any problem!

Do you think I need to change it back to the "AHCI"?

Thank you!

Do you think I need to change it back to the "AHCI"?

If you set it back now, your problem will return.
You need to reconfigure Windows to load the AHCI driver on boot so you won't have problems.

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