How to fix VMware or Virtual Box Stop Code 0x0000007B (0xBA4C3524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000) for Windows XP Professional After P2V

How to fix VMware or Virtual Box Stop Code 0x0000007B (0xBA4C3524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000) for Windows XP Professional After P2V

VMware or Virtual Box 0x0000007B occurs because of a hardware controller mismatch between the Operating System and the hardware controller being emulated. As a result when booting up the P2V machine you are presented with the STOP 0x0000007B code on the Virtual Machine. It is possible to fix the VMware or Virtual Box 0x0000007B Stop Code.

GUIDE – STEP BY STEP How to Fix Virtual Machine Stop Code 0x0000007B Error

Step 1 – Verify Controller Type is IDE

This guide assumes you are using the Hard Disk IDE controller! To check or change the Hard Disk go to the Virtual Machine Settings, set it to IDE for this guide.

IDE Controller

Step 2 – Get a Windows 7 or Later ISO (Installation Media)

To fix the inaccessible boot device, you will need a Windows ISO to boot from. Attach a Windows ISO to the virtual disk and boot from it. In this example we are fixing an inaccessible boot device for a Windows XP Professional Operating System. However, a Windows 7 ISO or later is needed to fix the registry settings. If you have a Windows 7 or later product key, you can download the ISO directly from Microsoft here

Windows 7 Iso Boot Media

Step 3 – Boot to the ISO Image File

Boot to the ISO. In the example below we shutdown the VM if it is running and select the “Power On to Firmware” option and change the boot order to prioritize the CD drive.

Save the changes and boot to the iso.

Power on Bios
VMware Bios Page

Step 4 – Open Registry Editor and SYSTEM Load Hive

Once you get the installation screen (depending on what ISO you used it may look different) hit “Shift + F10” to open up the CMD prompt. Launch regedit.

Once Regedit is open, click “File Load Hive” and locate the Operating System you want to fix / repair. It should be located in C:\Windows\System32\Config\. Make sure you are not selecting the CD ROM!

When you open the SYSTEM file it will ask you to name the hive you are to load, give it any name, in our example we call it VM CHANGES.

Regedit Command
Load hive
Locate system config file
Name the archive

Step 5 – Make Fixes in Registry

Once the VM CHANGES hive is loaded navigate to “CurrentControlSet001 –> Services”

Locate the following parameters and modify the “Start” parameter to the values provided below. If you cannot find some of the Services below that is okay, just ignore it and move onto the next one.

Start Parameter

Aliide = 3

Amdide = 3

Atapi = 0

Cmdide = 3

iaStorV = 3

intelide = 0

msahci = 3

pciide = 3

viaide = 3

LSI_SAS = 0

Locate the new archive
navigate controlset001 services
example of start parameter

Step 6 – Confirm Changes by Unloading Hive

Once all the Services Start parameters are changed select / highlight the VM CHANGES folder (or whatever name you gave it) and click “Unload Hive” it will also provide you a prompt – select YES.

Once the hive is unloaded exit out of the Windows ISO and restart the VM. You should now be able to see Windows boot successfully. 

unload hive
confirm all keys

Step 7 – Confirm Windows XP Boots Correctly

If the VM now boots and you have no Stop Code you are done.

Sometimes Windows XP may give you a Windows Product Activation loop.

How to get out of the Activation Loop

To get out of the activation loop launch Windows XP in Safe Mode (this is done by pressing F8). If you are unable to get to the safe mode on VMware you need to click on the Virtual Machine capture window during boot to capture the mouse pointer and press F8 quickly – you only have a few seconds here. F8 is also a VMware quick key to open VM thumbnails so if you see it come up when trying to boot into safe mode you did it wrong.

After “Safe Mode with Command Prompt” is started launch exporer.exe

Activation loop
Safe mode with command prompt
start explorer.exe

Make sure you are on an Administrator account, if not click Start –> Shutdown and then Log Off. Logon with Admin account

Launch Explorer.exe again

On the desktop create a file called activate.bat

It will say renaming may cause the file to become unstable – say yes that you want to change it. If you are not getting this you may need to enable the extension for known file types. This is located in the “My Computer –> Tools –> Folder Options”

show hidden files setting

Right click on activate.bat and select edit

Type in the following into the notepad window and save the file:

c:\windows\system32\rundll32.exe syssetup,SetupOobeBnk

These are not Zeros.

Execute the bat file and restart the virtual machine. 

trial bat file command

This will give you 30 day activation period for Windows XP.

windows trial version

If you want to permanently activate Windows XP read the guide here.

Windows XP 64 Activated

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6 thoughts on “How to fix VMware or Virtual Box Stop Code 0x0000007B (0xBA4C3524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000) for Windows XP Professional After P2V”

  1. Hi, thanks for your article, all what you’ve written is right. i found your solution after i also just found a simple solution. I’ve converted 2 vista computers to VM and tried many different programs (vmware converter, winimage, disk2vhd etc) all ending with the same Problem error 7B but then with EASUS BACKUP PREMIUM TRIAL function p2v the converted VM started and first told me to wait a few minutes to automatic configure windows to this vm and then i could come to the desktop of my new vm. i saw some error messages could not load some drivers because the virtual machine has not the same hardware (ATK and Touchpad) and after deinstalling the programs for not existing hardware the machine works fine without errors and faster as the old physical machine without need to twiggle in the registry.

    1. Riosam I’m glad you got it to work and thanks for sharing. I am unfamiliar with EASUS Backup software but once you learn to do the registry edits it goes pretty quick! This EASUS also assumes you’re able to run the p2v software I assume on the physical computer. This registry edit option will work on any image backups (example restoring from acronis .tib, macrium, ghost images (gho/ghs), and other image backup software (clonezilla)). Thanks for sharing!

  2. Thanks for your article. I tried to follow your directions but I can’t click File> Load Hive in Regedit since it’s greyed out. Can you tell me what to do in this case?

  3. I clicked HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE to Load Hive and followed your directions. After only one successful boot, my VM reverts to 0x0000007B. How can I reliably boot after regedit?

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