Windows has been shut down to prevent damage
 

I'm trying to format this hard drive, and I'm running into a lot of issues. Here is the error I get:

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF78D2524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

I have tried running CHKDSK, and also tried running SpinRite (which took 3 days). I have run antivirus software (AVG) and there are no controller cards or additional hard drives. Anyone know what I can do?

If it is an isolated error, and all your scans turn up nothing, then you can stop worrying about it.

There's no operating system on the hard drive anymore, I get that error while I'm trying to install Windows... also, running Ubuntu Live just locks up every time.

And you say Spinrite says the drive is clean?

In any case, I would be very suspicious of a drive that croaks during a Windows setup, so I'd recommend you use a different one instead.

It belongs to a neighbor of mine, so I either have to install an OS on it... or buy her another one. Damn.

if you can, place the hard drive in a working windows computer and run HD tune on it just to make sure. If it finds any errors then you should replace the drive

As an addition, try reformatting the drive and see if that does anything to help, with a different install DVD as an additional measure. It might've just been a bad format. I was running into a similar issue trying to reinstall an OS earlier today where it would flash me with errors claiming that it couldn't find hal.dll and I had to get another XP dvd and format the drive using that one in order for it to work.

I installed the harddrive into another computer so that I could put XP on it and format it. I put it back into the original computer and it said "the disk cannot be read, press control alt delete to restart". Any suggestions?

Could be a problem with the original computer then. Swap the hardware (motherboard, cabling, power supply) or try another hard disk on it.

I tried another hard drive, and I don't think I have the experience necessary to swap out the motherboard.

Did the other hard drive work?

No, no SATA drive will run in the computer because of the same error. However, I put in an IDE drive with Ubuntu on it, and it ran fine. So what I did was returned the new SATA drive I bought, and exchanged it for and IDE drive. That didn't work for some reason either, because of the same error.

Well, looks like you've ruled out the hard drive and the motherboard as problematic, since an IDE drive worked and another did not.

Fresh out of ideas, though I'm still thinking that the motherboard must be to blame somehow!

Sounds to me like it's the actual XP CD. Like I suggested earlier, try grabbing another disc somehow, or getting your current one exchanged. 'Cause if an IDE drive with an OS already on it works, yet you get the same error when you try to install XP on another IDE drive...