System recovered from serious error 2

[piratefan]

Today, my system froze on me. Only happened once before. I hit the reset, but no error message appeared. Then later, the screen just "rolls" and it reboots on its own. When it came back up, the shortcuts would not work. Sort of frozen again. I did a shutdown and then when it rebooted, the error message that the system had recovered from a serious error. Now I have had 2 of these messages in the past.
Somebody had instructed me before to do this and I did. System...shutoff system restore. Reboot. Turn on system restore. Reboot.
Is there anything else I can do?
Thanks.

 

[bcastner]

Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Event Viewer. Look in the Logs to see what XP is complaining about.

 

[piratefan]

I am not exactly sure what I am looking for there. There are three folders. Application, security and system. And in each one are many entries.
In system, all types are "information". In application, there are some types "warning". The ones with warnings have event 19011. Sorry but not too sure of myself here.

 

[linney]

You Receive a "System Has Recovered from a Serious Error" Message After Every Restart (Q317277)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q317/2/77.asp

316424 - Error Message: The System Has Recovered from a Serious Problem

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;316424&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

326688 - Windows XP Problems if Your Profile Is Damaged

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;326688&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

Some general things to try.

See if System Restore will get you back to a restore point before your problem with Windows.

Try running ChkDsk to check your drive for errors. Right click your Drive icon/ Properties/ Tools/ Error Checking.

Run the System File Checker program from the Run Box by typing.....Sfc /Scannow in it and have your XP CD handy.

HOW TO: Verify Unsigned Device Drivers in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q308/5/14.asp

If they don't work you could try repairing windows itself 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

 

[piratefan]

Thank you sir.

 

[piratefan]

I had another one of these error messages. I found this in my event listing for system. Category 102 and event 1003. Is there a way to tell what exactly this means? Thanks.

 

[bcastner]

Could you list the "Source" shown for the error?

 

[piratefan]

Yes sir. Just says "System Error". Type "Error".

 

[linney]

Have a look around here.

http://www.eventid.net/display.asp?eventid=1003&source=system

http://www.eventid.net/events.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr.../prodtechnol/winxppro/support/EE_winxppro.asp

 

[bcastner]

For eventid 1003, Catagory: 102 Source: System

Windows XP issues 'The System Has Recovered from a Serious Problem' at start up?

This problem is generally the result of a corrupted System Restore feature.

To fix the problem:
1. Control Panel / System.
2. Select the System Restore tab.
3. Check the Turn off System Restore box.
4. Press OK and press Yes to confirm.
5. Shutdown and restart Windows XP.
NOTE: You may still receive The system has recovered from a serious problem message.
6. Control Panel / System.
7. Select the System Restore tab.
8. Uncheck the Turn off System Restore box.
9. Press OK.
10. Shutdown and restart Windows XP.

Also you can solve this problem by recreating the pagefile. To recreate the pagefile, follow these steps:
1. Click Start.
2. Right-click My Computer.
3. Click Properties.
4. On the Advanced tab, in the Performance section, click Settings.
5. In the Virtual Memory section, click Change.
6. For Paging file size for selected drive, click No Paging File and then click Set.
7. Click Yes after the following warning appears:
Note: If the paging file on volume X: has an initial size of less than xx megabytes, then the system may not be able to create a debugging information file if a STOP error occurs. Continue anyway?
(X is the drive letter and xx is the amount of RAM installed on your computer minus 1 megabyte.)
8. Click System Managed Size.
9. Click OK four times, and then restart the computer when you are prompted.

An alternative method:
How to Delete the Pagefile.sys File in Recovery Console

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;255205

 

[piratefan]

Appreciate all the help. It doesn't happen at startup. Usually, it's been on quite awhile.

 

[bcastner]

Do the step anyway, as my guess for this poorly documented error condition is that it is related to a virutal memory pagefile problem.

A defrag of your pagefile, as the last step in deframentation of your hard disk drive is a reasonable step to take as well, after doing the reset suggested above.

sysinternals has an excellent freeware tool to do this, see a link and suggestions about pagefile issues in this article by Daniel Petri:

http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm

 

[piratefan]

Thanks and I will try these suggestions. Appreciate it much.

 

[bcastner]

Let us know how it goes.
Bill

 

[rgzimmer]

Why not just tell the system to delete the pagefile at shutdown via group policy? This will create a new one at startup.

 

[bcastner]

rgzimmer,

Yes, you can delete at shutdown. The problem is that it complicates shutdown, and certainly delays the shutdown and startup process dramaticly.

There are better options. See Daniel Petri's summary of defrag tools, monitoring facilities native to XP, and other thoughts about optomizing the pagefile:

http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm

My own thinking is that this option, (to remove the pagefile at shutdown) is appropriate at security concerned sites, but does little other than to slow your startup/shutdown for any other setting.

It most certainly should not be a standard setting. But see Petri's article, and if interested, you really should read Jim Eshelmen's article on virutal memory as well:

http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htmoptimization.htm

 

[piratefan]

I followed the recreate pagefile recommendation. I never did receive a warning though. When I hit set. I assume I should now look at the defrag of pagefile?
Thanks.

 

[bcastner]

I am a little concerned that the warning did not appear.

Redo the steps.

Then run the defrag utility for the pagefile.

 

[linney]

To my understanding the term used is "Clear" pagefile, and as such it does not remove or delete the pagefile but merely wipes it of data as a security provision.

From my experience when used on a standalone machine it may prolong Shutdown by a minute or two, but seems to have little effect on Boot times.

 

[bcastner]

linney,

It removes the pagefile. It does not do a cleaning as you describe, but rather does the process down and dirty:

. set the pagefile to zero
. force a service refresh with a stop/start sequence
. set the registry values back to user settings
. and prepare for shutdown.

If you have Roaming profiles, this can take and add quite a bit of time at shutdown and restart.

In all settings, XP will look for contiguos space to recreate the pagefile at startup. If you disk is in need of defragging, this can be very slow.

In all settings, the MRU idle process will attempt over time to move the pagefile to the faster portions of a disk drive. The option to remove the pagefile confounds this process. As it must be contiguos at creation, you lose the opportunity on XP as client and Win2k servers to let it be moved to the more quickly accesssable portions of the disk as the pagefile gets used in normal service. The relocation algorithum requires the same contiguous space as does the XP at the moment of pagefile creation.

This does not mean that it cannot become defragmented. The point above I wanted to emphasize is that as an original allocation it must be contiguous space, and over time, contiguous space in the most preferred sectors of the disk.

The remarkable guys at sysinternals have a utility to deal with fragmentation of the pagefile. My genuine concern is that using the removal of the pagefile is appropriate only in secure contexts. This is a decidedly poor approach to optomizing XP bootup or otherwise. It should be used as an option only to handle secure settings.

For a notion of how well your virutal memory is being handled, how to monitor it, how to defrag the pagefile, and the benefits of moving the pagefile location, please see these two links:

http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm

http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

There are a lot of gray areas about virutal memory. I am about 91.2% certain about the MRU process for the pagefile, 100% certain about the core issue of this thread: you set the client to remove the pagefile on exit only if you have security concerns.