Blue Screen Death-- Help please

[schne10134]

Never had to deal with teh Blue screen before.. this is not on our sever but on my boss' computer (running XP)I get the screen no matter how i boot (normal, last known config, safe mode).. I EVEN get this when i try and run recovery console and boot from Windows CD.

also safe mode always halts loading the agp440.sys which i think is something to do with the video. I know how to disable this but i cant get to a console to do so.

Am i correct in thinking that there must be a hardware failure, because i can't even boot from a CD?

any ideas? Thanks for any help, i NEED it

 

[morinak]

Sounds like a hardware issue to me. If you have another system with identical (or pretty close) hardware specs as your boss's computer. You could drop your boss's hard drive in there to check to see if the problem persists. Otherwise if you have another video card (ANY video card ... even if you need to borrow on from another PC) hanging around you could drop that in your boss's computer as another test. Just remember that if you swap for a VGA card to change it in the BIOS.

- Dan
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA

 

[yusuf4u52]

You can also try upgrading your BIOS version. Had a similar problem with Notebook computers and BIOS upgrade solved the problem.


Yusuf
CCNA, MCP

 

[ricpinto]

As a start, did you just install H/W and its s/w prior to BSOD? If "yes" then remove the card or the device physically and reboot. Post the result.

 

[schne10134]

Thank you all so much for the advice.. no there was not any hardware changes prior to this *ahem* meltdown.

also it is a compaq and i remember something about them not using a normal BIOS but rather a sofpaq or something.. i am not sure i can upgrade the BIOS.

any thanks again...

 

[AJP69]

Compaq will have the latest bios for their specific machine, checkout their website and enter the details of the machine.

Like above, i think this is a VGA card or bios config issue, it may be thta "someone" has been tweaking with the BIOS to try an make it run faster or perhaps they turned up the clock speed on the AGP card. Here are your options:

1. Load up the bios (press F key when computer is starting)
2. Select option to reset to defaults, if there is no such option unplug the machine, remove the battery from the motherboard and replace it after 10 mins.
3. Try to boot XP again.

4 If OK you are done, otherwise run diags on the hardware (also available from compaq website). If no hardware failure, then you have two options.

5a. Boot a partition magic rescue diskette and make a new primary partition, set the new one to the active partition. Re-install windows XP, if it works, make a ghost image of it for next time. You can then unhide the old partition and recover what you need.

5b. Take the HD out of that PC, mount it as a slave and backup the data to another PC/CD. Then add a new HD to the first machine and rebuild.

Under NT we used to get a lot of BSOD's caused by power failures during startup. The files affected were in the system32\config folder, but it was easier to have a windows only partition and just ghost it back. We keep all dat aon the lan and so this works for us.

 

[legassembly]

Cheers all
Had the same problem on two new compaq deskpro 510s.
One was simply boot to recovery console from Win cd. chkdsk -r (if i remmeber the syntax). On the second computer this did not work. I reinstalled fresh copy of Windows and it booted, ended up reimaging anyway but just note that it did work after reinstall.
I have read alot of documents on AGP440.sys and it seems this can be caused by everything from powersupply to driver update.
Hope it was not too late and/or it helps someone else

 

[justcurious]

Don't forget about boot sector viruses. I haven't seen one of those for a while, but they will cause a BSOD at boot up on any MS O/S since NT 3.51.

In case you have never seen one, or have forgotten what they are, here is how to get rid of them.....

Get a clean bootable diskette ( DOS 6.22 will do ) with fdisk.exe on it. Cold boot with this diskette, and I mean "COLD BOOT". Turn your machine off and go for a coffee. When you come back, power up with the diskette in the drive and let it boot to DOS. Then run fdisk with the MBR switch.

SPECIFICALLY: Type &quot;fdisk /mbr&quot; and hit <ENTER>

This will replace the boot sector on the hard drive with a clean one from the diskette.

Then remove the diskette and cold boot again. The system will boot up without any problems.

After you have done this, go find that floppy disk that caused the problem and physically destroy it. You can't fix it.

Did I mention that boot sector viruses are spread by floppy disks?

 

[beulah08]

Also, be sure you make the boot disk &quot;read-only&quot; or it can be come infected.