winxp reboot after getting blue error screen

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starks3x

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Oct 20, 2005
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Hello. Last night I was running Norton Anti-virus when my computer started freezing. It eventually completely froze and so I did a forced shutdown by holding the power button. After I turned the computer on, I get a black screen giving me start up options like boot in safe mode/normal mode/last good configuration... but no matter which option I pick, the computer gets to the black windows xp screen with the little progress bar and then shows the famous blue error screen and then restarts by itself! The cycle then continues (no matter what option I pick, it restarts after seeing the blue screen).

The blue error screen comes and goes to quickly for me to see the error number. Any ideas on how to fix this? I do not think it is a power supply problem or virus..but I could be wrong obviously.

Im running a dell with winxp pro, 3ghz pentium 4, 1gb ram. I have not replaced any hardware recently nor installed any new software recently as well.
 
Need more info... How old is your system, whats in it etc..
My guess would be your Hard Drive, but without more info couldn't tell ya
 
hello..my system is pretty new (about 1 year two months old)

im not a techie so I dont know if I can get too specific about whats inside..I do know everything is OEM equipment from dell except what is listed below (I have a dell dimension 3000)..I have the factory hard drive that came with the computer (80gb) and the cdrom/dvdrom that also came with the computer...

what I have replaced is the integrated audio card with the creative soundblaster audigy 2 value, the integrated video with a vision tek xtasy 9250 pci, I added a second drive (dvdr drive..i think the lite-on-it 1693) and most recently, replaced the factory memory with two 512mb pc3200 ddr dimms by kingston)

if you need more specific info about anything...please let me know.. THANK YOU!
 
also, to rule out that it is a problem with the memory, I am going to use a friends memory dimms in my computer and see if that solves the problem..but I will not be doing that until later tonight..any suggestions until then?
 
i have ruled out the video card as I completely pulled out my current video card and plugged in my monitor to the onboard graphics slot and I still get the same problem but now..instead of seeing the blue error screen after the black windows xp screen (with the bar going left to right)...the computer just restarts after the black screen..so i dont see the blue error screen anymore at all!

any help would be appreciated..thanks!
 
i have also just ruled out the memory as i used my friends ddr memory and have the same problem...what else could it be?????????

if its a harddrive problem..would it even get to the black windows xp screen and stay there for a good five seconds before it restarted??? and if it is a harddrive problem..what are my options????

PLEASE HELP!!!
 
Thanks for the reply mikeblas. After reading your article I have an idea of whats going on..but the problem is that I cannot get into windows bc the computer restarts right before the windows is starting screen (I tried through safe mode as well without luck).

I have already ruled out my ram and video card..i will try to test my audio card as well..but do you or anyone else have any suggestions about perhaps fixing the problem through windows system recovery?? I have seen online how other have copied certain files from the windows xp cd to the system32 folder to fix the problem..which I feel I might have to do in my case since I do not feel that it is a power supply problem.

Any input would be appreciated..thanks!
 
btw in case anyone missed it above..the blue error screen does not even show up anymore..the computer restarts without showing it now and even when it did show it..I couldnt read the error code because it only showed it for a split second before restarting.
 
Either go back to a last known good configuration, or get a new drive and reinstall, then mount the other drive and recover your files from it.
 
To stop it from automatically restarting, you could press F8 upon boot. There should be an option "Disable automatic restart on system failure", or something similar. Hopefully that'll leave the blue screen with the error message.
 
starks3x said:
Thanks for the reply mikeblas. After reading your article I have an idea of whats going on..but the problem is that I cannot get into windows bc the computer restarts right before the windows is starting screen (I tried through safe mode as well without luck).

I have already ruled out my ram and video card..i will try to test my audio card as well..but do you or anyone else have any suggestions about perhaps fixing the problem through windows system recovery?? I have seen online how other have copied certain files from the windows xp cd to the system32 folder to fix the problem..which I feel I might have to do in my case since I do not feel that it is a power supply problem.

Any input would be appreciated..thanks!
Click to expand...

it almost sounds like the hard drive died. i had this with my laptop a few years ago and replaced the drive and it is working perfectly now. if you still have tech support from dell (yes we all know how useful they are :rolleyes: ), use it and see if they can get you a new drive.
 
Thanks protias and zeplar for the replies. Protias, you're right about the hard drive. I put the hard drive as a slave in my other computer and tried to access all my files..but after installing the damaged drive, not only did my other computer run VERY SLOW..its gave me the following error message:

F:/ is not accessible.
Error performing inpage operation.

I basically figure this means Im screwed. But I just wanted to know..is there ANYTHING I can do to recover the files from this damaged hard drive??? I mean even if I have to send it to one of those professional recovery people I would do that because I have no backups of any of my pictures/music..so it is quite valuable to me.

Any help is appreciated!!!
 
If you don't have a backup, then anything you try will make it worse. If you really want the data back, send it to a professional service.
 
starks3x said:
Thanks protias and zeplar for the replies. Protias, you're right about the hard drive. I put the hard drive as a slave in my other computer and tried to access all my files..but after installing the damaged drive, not only did my other computer run VERY SLOW..its gave me the following error message:

F:/ is not accessible.
Error performing inpage operation.

I basically figure this means Im screwed. But I just wanted to know..is there ANYTHING I can do to recover the files from this damaged hard drive??? I mean even if I have to send it to one of those professional recovery people I would do that because I have no backups of any of my pictures/music..so it is quite valuable to me.

Any help is appreciated!!!
Click to expand...

if you can get the data off from slaving the drive, this is your best (as cheapest) route. you could also try a linux live cd (knoppix or ubuntu) or Windows Ultimate Boot CD to get that data off from the slave and put it on the master drive.

if you do not have a backup, you are left with paying a professional service to get the data off is your next option (that is if you want to spend that much money). otherwise, you are SOL from getting that data back.

thats all i can do for you man. hopefully everything goes well
 
You can also put that drive in another machine and use Get Data Back or Spinrite to recover the data
 
Thanks guys for the replies. Yah I guess Ill try the different recovery software you guys mentioned and try my luck before I shell out hundreds of dollars for a professional service. I actually found what looks to be a decent one in new york:

http://www.optimumrecovery.com/index.html

but im sure theyll expect me to pay alot. If you guys have heard of this specific company, let me know.

Thanks everyone for the help!
 
starks3x said:
Thanks guys for the replies. Yah I guess Ill try the different recovery software you guys mentioned and try my luck before I shell out hundreds of dollars for a professional service. I actually found what looks to be a decent one in new york:

http://www.optimumrecovery.com/index.html

but im sure theyll expect me to pay alot. If you guys have heard of this specific company, let me know.

Thanks everyone for the help!
Click to expand...

Spinrite will do it, its the best www.grc.com

Save your money on the professional service
 
thanks again for the replies again..but i think this case is closed now. -(Xyphox)-, I tried spinrite and did a level 2 recovery with the software..but it was running very slow..so slow that after 35 min it was only .02% finished and it said that the estimated time remaining was 365+ hours...lol...and it was accurate as after five minutes the estimated time would be 365+ hours -five minutes! sooo much for that..

then thanks to zeplar's tip..i disabled automatic restart through advanced options and this allowed me to see the error screen.. the error message was "unmountable_boot_volume" followed by the numeric stop code. I googled this online and the general consensus was that the solution to fix this was simple..in windows recovery I had to do:

chkdsk /p
chkdsk /r
fixboot

fixboot didnt fix the harddrive...then i tried chkdsk /p and again it took a long time...like after 30 min it was only at 3%..and the harddrive made a repitive sound every four seconds..(although it wasnt too loud) so all this led me to believe that there is a physical problem with the harddrive and doing all these recovery steps will only damage it more and make it harder for the professional service to recover the data...

so tomorrow im off to a service bc I need this data back (especially before i start school in a week)

so i just wanted to thank everyone who helped out..just wish the outcome couldve been better though..

btw..in case anyone is wondering..i tried slaving the defective harddrive to my other computer..but no luck as i got a "could not perform inpage operation" message when I just clicked on the drive in "my computer"


thanks again everyone!
 
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