BSOD Windows XP

[Bungral]

Hiya guys and gals,

A family that live near me are having problems with their Dell... I've been saying I'll take a look at it for them for a couple of months now, and as I have a couple of days off I figured I would.

Anyway the problem is that as Windows XP begins to load up it just BSODs... Same with safe mode.

My question is can I repair the install or should I just wipe the whole thing. I know Vista has a pretty decent repair thing on the DVD but from what I remember, the only time I tried on XP (years ago) it didn't work out.

 

[Rastalovich]

It greatly depends on what`s causing the BSOD, just to state the obvious.

If they`ve tried adding memory and then got this, or if it was just an out of the blue thing. The HDD could be knackered, or even the memory.

Luckiest situation, if u wanna look at it that way, is that it`s just the OS with no hardware issues.

To be fair, u can try the repair things, they`ve hardly ever worked for me. Normally I`d end up with an OS stuck in an attempted repair cycle that u can`t break.

Imo, backup whatever u can, and go for a fresh install. Has to be said tho that Dells normally carry a copy of XP on the c: drive, in the i386 folder. If there is a chance u can boot it to dos, u could try install/repair from that folder. Winnt32.exe/Winnt.exe or something like that, can`t remember.

 

[Bungral]

It greatly depends on what`s causing the BSOD, just to state the obvious.

If they`ve tried adding memory and then got this, or if it was just an out of the blue thing. The HDD could be knackered, or even the memory.

Luckiest situation, if u wanna look at it that way, is that it`s just the OS with no hardware issues.

To be fair, u can try the repair things, they`ve hardly ever worked for me. Normally I`d end up with an OS stuck in an attempted repair cycle that u can`t break.

Imo, backup whatever u can, and go for a fresh install. Has to be said tho that Dells normally carry a copy of XP on the c: drive, in the i386 folder. If there is a chance u can boot it to dos, u could try install/repair from that folder. Winnt32.exe/Winnt.exe or something like that, can`t remember.

Hmm well I can guarantee they hadn't added any hardware. Pretty sure it was just out of the blue. From what I gather there isn't anything important on there and they just want it working again. I guess I'll try and wipe the whole thing and start again.. Probably easiest.

 

[Ham]

Take a live CD (windows PE, knoppix, ubuntu or what ever) over and boot from that. Eliminate any hardware errors before wiping the OS.

Knoppix has memtest built in and would be my choice.

If that works fine, take a spare drive with a fresh copy of windows and boot it form that. If it passes the above 2 then repair/wipe.

If it is hardware you don't want it messing up 1/2 way thought the installation.

Another thing may be heat. Is it dusty and clogged? While its not a normal cause of BSOD, its windows and anything is possible.

 

[Bungral]

See i tried to take a spare hdd over with another install of xp on it but I couldn't get an OS to install on my external drive for some reason. Other than that I haven't got a spare drive.

I'm gonna nick their machine and bring it back here. Will hoover it out first to see if that helps.

 

[Bungral]

Ok, got my hands on it and sorted it without a full format.

Used the crappy Dell test stuff on the utility partition and basically it told me something was wrong but didn't want to fix it. I loaded the windows disc and did the ol chkdsk /r . It took about a year but it did the trick.

 

[ali_james]

Good work man

I had a similar problem with my girlfriends laptop a while back and used SpinRite (which is bleedin marvelous ). I imagine its pretty much the same thing as the Dell and that did the job, has to stick the HDD in my machine 'cos it was slow doing it on the lappy.

Glad you sorted it!