WinXP BSOD on startup

Posted by: wfaulk

WinXP BSOD on startup - 10/12/2004 04:32

Suddenly, my main workstation has taken to BSODing during WinXP bootup. It doesn't even make it past the VGA XP logo with the little progress bar.

Of course, it immediately reboots at the BS, so I can't read what the problem is. None of the safe modes or "last known good config" help. Anything else I can try? Anyone know how to disable auto-reboot without going into Windows?
Posted by: andy

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 10/12/2004 05:22

Can't you boot from the WinXP CD and try a repair ?
Posted by: Dignan

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 10/12/2004 11:52

Is there no "Safe mode with command prompt"? Doesn't that one show you what's loading behind that VGA logo?
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 10/12/2004 18:15

Yeah, I did that one, too. It prints out a number of device driver paths, sits there a little while, then bluescreens.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 10/12/2004 19:50

First, get Bart's PE (google for it, it's awesome, you'll see.)

Then do a logged boot and use Bart's PE to look at the file to see where it's dying. Once you find what driver it's dying on, search the MS KB.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 10/12/2004 20:14

I assume you mean to do a logged boot of the current installation that crashing? Or do you mean a logged boot of Bart's PE? If the former, how do I get Windows to do a logged boot? If the latter, I assume that it will be obvious once I get it donwloaded and booted.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 10/12/2004 20:16

Quote:
If the former, how do I get Windows to do a logged boot?

Yes, I meant logged Windows boot. The only reason I suggested Bart's PE was so that you could easily boot into a nice workable windows environment where you could open and read the log file off of an NTFS hard drive.

I'm pretty sure logged boot is still one of the options when you press F8 during a Windows boot, right?
Posted by: Ezekiel

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 10/12/2004 20:18

Sweet link Tony. I had a machine go TU today and even reinstalls weren't working, I suspect a HW issue but PE will let me know for sure.

-Zeke
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 10/12/2004 20:20

I tried pressing F8 during one of my boots. I never got anything more than Safe, Safe w/ Networking, Safe w/ Command Prompt, and Normal Boot. I think there was one more, but I can't remember it now, and I could be wrong anyway. This is the same menu that came up during every other boot in the cycle. But I'll try again.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 10/12/2004 20:28

This KB article says there should be a logging option.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 10/12/2004 20:43

Oh, yeah. Last known good was the other one. Duh.

I'll try again when I get home. Thanks for the help so far. Someone else has said that if you press Pause when the BSOD is up, it'll not reboot, but that requires good timing, apparently. I'll give it a shot, too.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 10/12/2004 23:54

Yeah, there were more options there. But the one that appealed to me was "Disable Auto-Restart on Crash" or something like that. For the record, the "Technical Information" is:

Code:
*** STOP: 0x00000024 (0x001902FE,0xF78C6B74,0xF78C6870,0xF7B63746)



***      Ntfs.sys - Address F7B63746 base at F7B52000, DateStamp 41107eea

This apparently means I have a corrupted NTFS filesystem somewhere, not necessarily the system filesystem. Given that I had some corruption on one of my disks a month or so ago, I'm guessing I know which one it is.
Posted by: bonzi

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 11/12/2004 08:34

Heh, and 'analysts' and 'consultants' keep blathering that one of main Windows advantages is that is easily maintained and administerted by users' grandmother
Posted by: andy

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 11/12/2004 08:42

Perhaps at this point we should mention the clever Mac OS feature where it refuses to return from sleep if it can't find one of the disks I knew about when it went to sleep...

...a very handy feature if you take your PowerBook travelling without realising it has this "feature".

P.S. I'm going to sue Mr Jobs for damages if I stub my toe on this immovable object that is the Dual G5 again
Posted by: bonzi

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 11/12/2004 08:54

Quote:
Perhaps at this point we should mention the clever Mac OS feature where it refuses to return from sleep if it can't find one of the disks I knew about when it went to sleep...

...a very handy feature if you take your PowerBook travelling without realising it has this "feature"...

Ouch! I see that Mr. Gates' wisdom is spreading.....
Posted by: David

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 11/12/2004 12:11

Mac OS feature where it refuses to return from sleep if it can't find one of the disks I knew about when it went to sleep

I've never come across this problem. I often backup my PowerBook with an external Firewire drive and it survives being put to sleep with a drive connected and woken up with the drive disconnected with no problems at all.
Posted by: tman

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 11/12/2004 12:43

Well. It's partially true. They managed to make it easier to use and reduce the number of times you get a BSOD by making it automatically reboot when it gets one
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 11/12/2004 16:36

Yep. If I disconnect my D: drive, then I can boot and all is normal. Of course, I'd like to repair that drive, but if I hook it back up, then I can't boot the OS any more. The MS KB article (for 2000, admittedly) says I should be able to create boot disks, comment out the ntfs driver in a config file on the first boot disk, go into recovery mode and run chkdsk.

Of course, this doesn't actually work. The other option is to put it in an XP machine that has its system folder on a FAT filesystem. Which pretty much means building a new machine.

Maybe I can put it in an external case. Are there external USB or FW cases that will accept SATA drives?
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 11/12/2004 17:14

Looks like SATA is hot-pluggable. I might give that a try tomorrow unless someone can tell me not to.
Posted by: tman

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 11/12/2004 17:27

SATA Hot Plug isn't supported on all chipsets. The early Intel ones for example don't do it.
Posted by: andy

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 11/12/2004 17:31

Quote:
Mac OS feature where it refuses to return from sleep if it can't find one of the disks I knew about when it went to sleep

I've never come across this problem. I often backup my PowerBook with an external Firewire drive and it survives being put to sleep with a drive connected and woken up with the drive disconnected with no problems at all.


I can't find it at the moment, but I read an article the other day were this problem was discussed, which is why I mentioned it.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 11/12/2004 17:44

Quote:
Yep. If I disconnect my D: drive, then I can boot and all is normal. Of course, I'd like to repair that drive, but if I hook it back up, then I can't boot the OS any more.


You can use Bart's PE to copy important files off of that disk without a full repair, can't you?

I would be surprised if Bart refused to boot because of that drive.
Posted by: image

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 11/12/2004 19:41

or use norton ghost to copy from one hard drive to a spare. if you get any errors, just choose to ignore them in the options. make sure that the spare can boot connected. if so, then ghost back the information to the original messed up drive. wallah!
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: WinXP BSOD on startup - 12/12/2004 16:09

Well, it looks like mine does support it, and the OS thinks pretty hard about mounting it, but then after ten seconds or so BSODs with the same error that was preventing it from booting.

I can't believe that a corrupt unrequired filesystem crashes the entire OS. What shitty software engineering.