So, I bought a desktop (Dell XPS) off of craigslist last SUMMER, and it had a trial copy of Windows 7 on it. Well I have been out of town recently, just got back and logged on to my computer to find out that this trial will end in about 4 HOURS. I have backed everything up to an external HD, and am trying to install my old Windows XP onto this system (hence me posting this in the XP section).  I have installed XP several times before without any issues, although now I am running into trouble

What happens is that I boot from DISK, allow it to start loading up, then at the bottom it says, "Starting Windows".  At this point I have not done anything, I am just waiting for it to put me in to the loading part. At this point, the screen goes blue, and I am getting a STOP: 0x0000007B error message and it wont go any further. I am forced to shut down, and have retried with no LUCK.

The message says something like (cant remember exactly):
Windows has detected and error and is shutting down to prevent damage to your computer
If this is the first time you have seen this message, restart and try again. Otherwise follow instructions below:
Check for viruses(which I have)....do a Chkdsk /f (which I did)...and some stuff about BIOS I think.

So anyway, I would sure like some help on this.  I am sure you all need more info or something, just let me know and I will post it.  Thank you!Are you quite sure it is booting to the XP CD ? ?
Double check to see if CDRom is the 1st boot device in the BIOS.Where did you get the XP disk? 
What kind is it?
If you have another PC you can use it to help do the install.
in the BIOS 1st boot is Optical Drive, which is the CDROM, right? I am pretty certain it is booting from the CDROM, everything works like I want until the error screen.

I am using A Windows XP Home Edition CD, i have used it in the past and had no issues with it. It is one I bought several computers back. The only other computer I have in the house is a laptop...This may be a quick work around.   
Boot up your computer with anything that can erase a hard drive.
A floppy with FDISK.
Almost any Linux Live Distro.
A Sea gate HDD prep floppy.
The problem is Windows XP Setup can not read the hard drive until you erase it and write a new MBR to it.
(Details upon request.)
Quote

The problem is Windows XP Setup can not read the hard drive until you erase it and write a new MBR to it.
(Details upon request.)

Not true at all...an XP setup disk can read any HDD no matter what OS is installed to it.

If he is not seeing the Windows is inspecting your hardware config screen it's not booting to the XP CD...

However it sounds as if setup is not letting him get that far.

download the SATA drivers for the PCs motherboard to a floppy disk.

When XP prompts "press f6 to load a third-party or RAID driver" do so.

Windows XP does not support SATA.

My personal remedy is the easy way out. I set the SATA mode in the BIOS to IDE or "compatible" so that the OS can treat the SATA controller as it would a IDE controller.