As more and more users deploy the latest iteration of the Windows client on their computers, additional issues affecting the platform come to light. After all, even with an 8 million strong Beta testing pool, Microsoft could not replicate all real life usage scenarios that would cause Windows 7 glitches. The latest issue made public by the Redmond company involves the Windows Vista’s successor not playing that nice with large SATA hard disks. The software giant informs that end users can come across various Stop error messages when they try to resume a computer equipped with a large SATA HDD and running either Windows 7 or Windows 8.

“Consider the following scenario: you have a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. The computer has a Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) hard disk. The size of the SATA hard disk is large. For example, the size of the SATA hard disk is 1 terabyte (TB). You put the computer into the Sleep state or into the Hibernate state. You try to resume the computer,” the company noted.

In such a case, end users might come across one of the Stop error message from the following: STOP 0x0000007A, STOP 0x00000077 or STOP 0x000000F4. Microsoft has identified the source of the problems and has already released a fix. The hotfix available for download through Microsoft Support is however, intended to resolve only the specific issue described above. Users not affected by this issue should not implement the hotfix, and wait for the first update from Microsoft that will contain it, most probably Service Pack 1 (SP1).

“When you resume a computer, the SATA hard disk drivers require the SATA hard disks to be ready within 10 seconds. However, a large SATA hard disk may take longer than 10 seconds to be ready. In this situation, the resume operation times out,” Microsoft explained.