Downgraded back to win7, error 0x00000007b

Hello Forum,

last night I decided to downgrade from Windows 10 and go back to my old windows 7. The problem I have now is that my computer won't load windows, I get blue screen of death with an error code 0x00000007b. I had an restore image for Win10 but it won't work now. Safe mode also won't load, and windows won't repair by itself.

Mind you, I didn't do anything but let computer downgrade itself back to win 7.

Do you have any suggestions how can I get my computer back and running again, or I just need to install new system?

Thanks!

I have not tryed myself, but I would try this:

Boot from a DVD/USB stick with Windows 10 on it and then use the recovery options to restore your image again.

Hi, Nekotamo92,

So.. we don't really know the state of your disk- what's on it- whether you're primarily Windows 10 or Windows 7 in terms of what's on your active partition. In other words, how far it got through restoring Windows.old (your former Windows 7).

Basic question- is your disk readable? The BSOD error suggests this: (this is an out of date interpretation, but you'll get the gist)
"A 7b BSOD means INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE, translating to the computer not being able to load Windows correctly from the drive. This is most typically caused by incorrectly configured drivers, BIOS, or bad hardware. Since you said you transferred data, I am led to believe that either 1) when transferring the data the storage controller driver was somehow overwritten, leading to incompatibility with your current storage controller on the new motherboard, 2) that the data transfer failed in some way and corrupted the boot partition, or most likely 3) that you replaced boot.ini, ntldr, or ntdetect.com on the new install. Normally the last two are pretty universal, meaning that boot.ini is most likely the culprit. You want to make sure that boot.ini is how it should be, and if it isn't boot into an XP recovery console, bind to that OS, and run bootcfg /rebuild. That should rebuild your boot.ini correctly.
If the correct storage controller driver was loaded, it should be as simple as replacing that .sys file with the correct one (obtained from either the motherboard's manufacturer's website or the storage controller's manufacturer's website).

If it is the second, which is the least likely, running chkdsk /r should fix that. ....."

Also "The INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE bug check frequently occurs because of a boot device failure. During I/O system initialization, the boot device driver might have failed to initialize the boot device (typically a hard disk). File system initialization might have failed because it did not recognize the data on the boot device. Also, repartitioning the system partition or installing a new SCSI adapter or disk controller might induce this error.

This error can also occur because of incompatible disk hardware. If the error occurred at the initial setup of the system, the system might have been installed on an unsupported disk or SCSI controller. Some controllers are supported only by drivers that are in the Windows Driver Library (WDL). (These drivers require the user to do a custom installation.)"

It could help to be able to view your system disk/partition, and see if you can read the disk and determine if the Windows folder is 7 or 10- or just unusable.

By far the easiest way would be to connect your disk as an external disk to another PC and then have a look to see what you've got.

Then run chkdsk on it.

You should be able to use a Windows boot CD to get to a command prompt and run chkdsk, but you'd need a different boot disk compatible with your PC (think BIOS vs UEFI - which I don't have) to run a mini Windows OS in RAM from the CD and use explorer to view the disk.

I bet this is where you should be wishing you had used disk imaging (Macrium Reflect or Aomei Backupper- which I use -free). If you regularly and before significant changes update your disk image, you can easily revert to a previoustly working state as well as having an accessible full backup of whichever disks and partitions you have imaged.

Windows is fragile, and very easily corrupted- restoring an image is often much quicker than seeking a technical fix.