Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) is a free update of Windows XP provided by Microsoft. Two main features added in XP2 are security updates and hotfix solutions. To take benefit of these updates, most of the users upgrade their XP based system to Windows XP SP2. Despite the fact that XP2 provides additional features, the installation of XP2 might result into a STOP error message. Once the STOP error message appears, the data stored in the hard drive becomes inaccessible. In such data loss scenarios, an ideal solution is to restore the data from an up-to-date backup. But, in case of unavailability of an up-to-date backup, you need to use advanced Data Recovery application.

As a practical case, you upgrade your XP based system to Windows XP SP2. Once the upgradation is complete and you restart your system, the Mpegport.sys driver tries to run from a memory location that is monitored by DEP (Data Execution Prevention). You encounter the below STOP error message:

“0x000000FC (ATTEMPTED_EXECUTE_OF_NOEXECUTE_MEMORY)”

The above error message results in unbootable hard drive making all the data saved in hard drive inaccessible. In addition, the same error message appears every time you attempt to boot your system.

Cause:

Two primary reasons for the above error message are:

· The system includes a legacy hardware DVD decoder that needs the Mpegport.sys driver.

· You installed the 32-bit version of Windows XP SP2 on a system that supports hardware-enforced DEP.

Resolution:

To resolve the above error message and access the data saved on the hard drive, you will need to contact the driver vendor for an updated version of the driver without the incompatibility problem. If an updated version of the driver is available, the driver can be installed in Safe Mode.

However, if an updated version of the driver is not available, the best option is to go for clean reinstall of Windows XP. A fresh reinstall of Windows XP will completely erase all the data from the selected hard drive partition. To systematically recover your data in such situations, you will need to use powerful data recovery software. These data recovery tools use high-end scanning mechanisms to recover lost data from a formatted hard drive. Built with graphical user-interface, automated recovery procedure and advanced features, these data recovery tools serve as easy-to-understand and recovery centric tools.