If you are experiencing a blue screen (STOP 0x0000007B)...

[giulio.vezzelli]

... and as me, you are running on a T60 WS with Vista preinstalled, then you should consider installing the latest Intel Matrix Storage drivers available for Vista.

The preinstalled Vista uses Microsoft standard AHCI drivers, which appear to have some issues on the T60.

I frequently had that error on boot, now that I have installed Intel drivers I've never seen it again.

By the way, the 0x0000007B error means "inaccessible boot device", it looks that the standard AHCI driver was sometimes unable to correctly mount the system volume.

Hope it may help someone with the same problem

Regards.

[stephenaron]

I installed Retail version of Vista Ultimate on my T60p. I am using an aftermkt harddrive from newegg. Hitachi 100gb 7200rpm drive. As long as i have the bios set to compatabilty, i dont get that error. When i set it to AHCI, i get the blue screen. I have all the drivers updated, so i am not sure why i cant boot in AHCI mode, but from what i have read, its really doesnt make much difference. Any opinions or thoughts?

[GomJabbar]

When i set it to AHCI, i get the blue screen.

See if you find the answer in the following thread.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 485#252485

[stephenaron]

Nope. I read that one. Just like the last entry in it....i get get BSOD even though all drivers are installed. Unless.....the bios needs to be set BEFORE installing VISTA? I assumed you could set to compatabilty....install vista and drivers....and then change bios to AHCI. Thoughts?

[giulio.vezzelli]

Unfortunately, you must set IDE mode BEFORE installing OS (expect some rare cases where you have both drivers installed).

If you install Vista with the IDE controller in compatibility mode, Microsoft AHCI driver is not installed. And of course if you install Matrix Storage drivers when in compatibility mode, Intel AHCI driver is not installed.

Doing the reverse (going from AHCI to compatibility mode) is easier because the standard IDE drivers are loaded by default in the OS. So if you install Vista in AHCI mode you can then switch from one to another easily.

I think it would be possibile (I don't know how, though) to manually install the Intel AHCI driver (iaStor.sys) and configure it to run at boot time. STOP 0x0000007B happens if no driver that runs at boot time can mount the root drive.

It would need some fiddling with HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services like :

- manually creating the iaStor entry
- configuring correctly all parameters
- manually installing iaStor.sys in C:\Windows\System32\Drivers

With some help from someone who correctly installed them you may be able to make it work. Never tried it myself, though.

Regards.

[stephenaron]

thanks for the very clear explantion. That helps. Next time i format, i will make that change before installing Vista. I would swear that i tried installing VIsta in AHCI mode and that i got a BSOD, but who knows. Let you know next time. Thanks.