I never honestly thought that anyone would ever ask that. I have the exact same problem. I am trying to set up windows 7, and no matter what, I always get that error on boot. I also tried starting the installation on Windows xp, then letting it reboot to finish, but it still does the same thing.
Error
STOP: 0x000000A5 (0x0001000B, 0x50434146, 0xFFd0ac0, 0x00000000)
And then nothing else. In case you were wondering, mine is an hp pavilion zt150. Wanna hear the "amazing specs"?
hp pavilion zt1250
Intel Celeron 1.3GHz Processor
S3 Twister Video
1 GB of RAM (upgraded from a half a gigabyte)
20 GB Hard Drive (almost large enough for a very light setup of Windows xp and the essentials (security software, web browser, windows updates, cd burning apps is about all)
Ethernet and DialUp Plugs
External PCMCIA WiFi 802.11b card
DVD Drive, burns CDs
1024x768 "decent" resolution screen.
I honestly never thought that people actually had an interest in something so old, I thought I was the only "old school" person here around, but apparantly I'm not. That laptop has worked quite well for quite a while, but it has a number of "slight annoyances" about it. They are slight, but they really do add up:
# 1: The Screen. It is a very nice screen, but every once in a while the backlight will cut out. I think this has something to do with a bad connection somewhere. Wobbling the screen forward and back, or just hitting the little button that makes the computer think it is closed will fix this.
# 2: Tiny Hard Drive. When I use a computer, I don't need much space, but even for xp, 20 GB just hardly cuts it. I could live with 40, even thirty, but sometimes disk defragmenter will give you an earful if it is "too full", and some programs, especially Microsoft Office 2007 take up huge amounts of space. To remedy this, I use office 2003, and office 2007 portable edition.
# 3: Slightly slow processor. this gets a bit annoying when you are trying to watch a YouTube video. Even on lowest quality, I scarcely achieve a couple frames per second. Music is all right though, and it can handle most other stuff as long as it is not too intense for it.
# 4: Bad screen latch. Maybe this was just a 1 in a thousand thing, but I discovered that the latch for the screen falls off quite easily, and if you by chance accidentally loose this latch, you find yourself needing a pointy object to push on the little holes in the latch release mechanism to open the screen - this gets quite annoying, so I don't usually close the screen all the way.
# 5: The trackpad. Perhaps the most irritating item of all. Now, unlike most people I know, I don't mind trackpads on laptops, but this one is especially tricky. After say fifteen to twenty minutes of use, the trackpad goes crazy. It moves the mouse around on the screen even if your finger is not touching the trackpad, if you attempt to move it, it will bounce right back to where it was before, and randomly click whenever it likes (because just tapping on the trackpad registers as a left click). Eventually it becomes completely unusable, I mean UNUSABLE! I have to grab a bulky mouse to use. When it works, it works nicely, but after some time it just goes crazy and refuses to work. I personally think it has something to do with heat, since trackpads work on the principle of heat. I know this laptop gets quite hot, especially on the bottom, and when I feel the trackpad after the machine has been on for a while, the heat from the internal components seem to have made the trackpad feel a bit warm as well, so maybe the warmth from the other items in the computer is messing with the trackpad.
Although there are several things that I like particularly about this laptop that are quite handy.
The placement of ports on the outside is excellent. It seems that today, they will just put the ports wherever they seem to fit. What I really like, is that most of the plugs are on the back. From left to right on the back is the power, a parallel port (Actually used this for an ancient printer), VGA Plug, 2 USB Plugs, and a Mic/Audio Out jack. On the right side are only what needs to be there: Nothing - there are no plugs on the right side, just a volume control (where it should ALWAYS be!) and the DVD drive, and the fan grill. No irritating plugs on the front either, but there is a handy little screen that tells you the system status and time/date/battery level, also has some nifty little media control buttons on the front. On the left, from left to right is the Ethernet/Phone connection, firewire, nothing for a little way, and then at the end closest to the front, a conveniently placed usb plug and headphone jack. Look at even modern hp computers, and it looks like a three year old placed the location of the external buttons and plugs. I don't want cables pouring out of all four sides of my computer - very irritating.
Anyway, I know this has drifted waaaaay off the topic, but I thought I'd mention that. Maybe inspire laptop manufacturers to use the same physical design with improved hardware specs, and maybe someone would want to try looking into the errors presented when trying to install Windows 7. I was really looking forward to posting one of those "Windows 7 running on nine year old laptop" videos on YouTube.
Thanks!
- 2 Bunny
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