BSOD (Stop 0x00000050) after adding RAM to laptop 1

[gerryan]

If you have a laptop running Windows 2000, think very carefully before attempting to add some more RAM as you may need to set aside a couple of days to get it going again.

A couple of days ago, I replaced one of the two 32Mb memory modules in my ThinkPad with a 128Mb module to increase total RAM from 64Mb to 160Mb. A simple change you might think - so did I until I discovered that Win2000 was crashing with a BSOD (Stop 0x00000050) during startup.

The only references I could find on TechNet suggested that the RAM must be faulty but as I have a dual-boot setup and Win98 was quite happy with the extra RAM, that seemed unlikely. This was confirmed when I was able to do a fresh install of Win2K into a different directory and that worked OK.

Not wanting to go through the pain of rebuilding everything from scratch, I contacted MS Support for help. The response I eventually received said in part:

".... this issue .... seems to be commonplace with quite a few
laptops, the majority of these cases were fixed by doing a
repair re-install of win2k which allowed the ram upgrade
to be properly detected."

And YES, after I went through the long process of doing a full install and selecting "Repair an existing installation" (Note: this is not the same as the Emergency Repair process) my laptop has been brought back from the brink.

However, because this problem was brought on by a hardware change, Microsoft do not consider this to be a "bug" and it has therefore cost me a support incident.

For the same reason, Microsoft have chosen not to make this information available on their public Knowledge Base, so if you run into this problem and want to find out what is going on, you have to pay for Tech Support help.

And they still wonder why everyone hates them so much . . . . .

 

[WayneDC]

I have this same problem except it is occurring on a desktop system running sole boot win2k SP1. Tried upgrading from 64MB to 128MB and received STOP 50 error on boot. Can install win2k to fresh directory OK. I am confused as to what Gerry means by full install and repairing existing installation if that is not the emergency repair option. Can you enlighten me before I attempt something that sounds terribly irreversible.

 

[gerryan]

There are two points during the install process where you get to select the type of installation to be performed. The first essentially allows you to choose between 'Full Install' and 'Emergency Repair'.

If you select 'Full Install' process at that point, the install process detects that Win2K is already installed and (eventually) gives you another choice between a 'New Install' and 'Repair and existing installation' (the words on screen may be different) - if you select the 'Repair' option at this point, it should resurrect Win2K *without* losing all your setup.

Good luck !!

 

[WayneDC]

Thanks Gerry - exactly how i ended up doing it as u suggested and it worked successfully. I still cant believe just how many hours i have wasted searching for a clue to this problem which I was believing to be due to bad hardware. In these instances i have found the MS KB to be totally useless. Many thanks once again for yr help.