Page fault in non page area - XP or hard drive problem? 1

[Hunter97321]

I am trying to fix a Dell computer with an 80 gigabyte WD hard drive. It doesn't matter which boot option I choose to start the computer, it comes up with BSOD (page fault in non page fault area). Also, when I tried to slave the drive to my computer it caused my computer to go into a reboot loop. The drive feels like it is working when the power turns on. Customer claims that they were installing Panda Titanium when this problem occured. Any ideas?

 

[linney]

See if there is any help here.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/w2kmsgs/6093.asp

http://search.microsoft.com/search/results.aspx?st=b&qu=PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA&view=en-us

HOW TO: Install and Use the Recovery Console for Windows XP (Q307654)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q307/6/54.asp

Try ChkDsk /r from the Recovery Console


If they don't work you could try repairing windows by running it over itself. You will lose all your windows updates but your files will be untouched.

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP (Q315341)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q315/3/41.asp

 

[MrLimo]

I was having this problem, first occured when installing directx9. after trying to deal with it for a while, ended up swapping processor and fixed the problem.

 

[Hunter97321]

I guess that I forgot to mention that it does the same thing when I try to start the computer with the operating system cd. I can't get to the recovery console and it also will not reinstall.

 

[Hunter97321]

No Ideas? I'm getting desperate here. Help!

 

[linney]

If you are unable to boot from CD then your options become rather limited.

Recovery Console is available via a download of a program that you copy to a set of 6 floppies. Hopefully you can boot from floppies?

310994 - Obtaining Windows XP Setup Boot Disks

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310994&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

Also using boot floppies you can check your RAM.

http://www.memtest86.com/

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

You can also download bootable floppy disc programs from the drive manufacturer to thoroughly check and diagnose the hard drive.

The fact that the drive causes problems on two separate machines suggests where your problem is. Good luck.

 

[Hunter97321]

I was unable to boot the drive with floppies as well, thanks for the advice. It looks like it's time for a new drive.

 

[MrLimo]

Try re-seating all of your add in cards, your ram chips & maybe even your CPU. I was having the same problem & a new CPU solved it.

 

[Hunter97321]

I installed an old hard drive that I had laying around and installed Windows XP just as a test. Everything went smoothly.

On a side note, I was messing around with Microscope diagnostics (with the original hard drive) and the hard drive shows a 32mb partition of unknown type that it called the bootable partition. The rest of the drive 79.9 GB was an unbootable partition in HP/NTSF format.

 

[linney]

Might be a Dell Recovery Partition. You would have to check with Dell.