Windows XP Stop 0x0000007B Error Booting into Safe Mode
A recent malware removal session gave a very frustrating error in trying to boot into safe mode. I was unable to boot into safe mode, safe mode with networking or even safe mode with the command prompt. The Stop Error was a Stop 0x0000007B Error. The instructions on the screen talk about running chkdsk on the drive (which I did.) There were a few things found and corrected, but the problem was still there. On investigation I went into the registry editor (regedit) and found that the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot registry key had been emasculated. There were two subkeys for minimal and network profiles…. So… I found a way to rebuild them.
Didier Stevens has spent a lot of time on this and has developed a registry patch file. There are patches for Xp sp2 and sp3 as well as 2003 server and Windows 2000 SP4 in his download zip.
There is an https and an http download link for safeboot. The registry patches worked and allowed safe mode to work. I did further scans on the system and ultimately all is clean.