Satellite boot problem

Charlesdc1

Estimable
Nov 22, 2015
2
0
4,510
Hi there.
Hope you can help with problem been driving me crazy for weeks.
Friends satellite A200 - 27z had "boot loop" problem ending in blue screen ( Stop: 0X0000007b (0X80399bbo, XC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000).
Having had this problem on my laptop of similar age (advent), sorted by removing and replacing CMOS battery, thought I'd do the same.
Obviously, too easy! CMOS soldered in! But shorted it, with result of message on boot saying check time settings, and defaults used.
But back to Blue screen.
At this point, I COULD get into system restore and to command prompt within that. After trying everything I could find on various threads, got "0 windows installations found". Found another thread wrt this, followed instructions and got finally, 1 windows installation found! Thought I'd cracked it.
Oh no. Blue screen, and now can't get into restore.
Tried all suggested tricks..holding down "0", "o" etc...to no avail.
Burned countless repair, restore discs, tried booting from them, no joy.
I have read the above blue screen message probably refers to hardware problem. But what is REALLY baffling me is this..
In my desperation, I swapped hard-drives over, (different hard-drives, different laptops), and BOTH laptops booted as normal!
Some drivers not working which I would expect, (is that correct?), but otherwise, both laptops working normally!
Can't understand if it was a hardware problem why his laptop would work with my hard drive in it, and if it was software, why mine works with his hard drive in!
Please, please advise! Driving me nuts!
And just swapping hard-drives over permanently isn't an option.
For one reason they don't physically fit with covers in....but main reason I don't want to give up on this!
All the best,
Charlie