troubleshooting a PC

I figured posting on the forum would be better than a meesage in FS (no limit to text size here)


so you have gotten that "dreaded blue screen of death" and wonder what to do next....

I'll have some questions to ask first..

what OS ? windows xp ? sp3 ? language ?
was there anything you had installed or done just before this started ? Ms updates? a new driver or program ?

first off.. we need to identify what the error said.. but as you know, once you get the error, it doesn't stay on the screen long before it reboots..
so you need to hit F8... (like you would if trying to go to safe mode) and select "disable automatic reboot on error".. then you need to reboot
and get to that screen and write down what the error is...

there should be one part that is a title like "IRQL_NOT_GREATER_OR_EQUAL"
and then the stop error (some number) STOP 0x0000000A

at this point google is your friend..

here are a few links that talk about troubleshooting stop errors..

http://www.aumha.org/a/stop.php
http://oreilly.com/pub/a/windows/2004/06/08/stop_errors.html
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_stop.htm

those links will tell you what should be done but basically.. besides googling on the error, you will need to look at your event logs to see what errors there are

without knowing what you have.. I can only guess it's a corrupt driver.. or maybe the hard drive developed a bad sector (or a few)

assuming the error doesn't appear to be a driver problem or some program you had installed.. (or an update)..

to check and possibly fix hard drive errors, you should use HDD regenerator .. if the program finds only one or a few bad sectors and repairs them it won't
take long to run it.. BUT.. if it's finding many bad sectors, it can take DAYS (I've seen more than a week).. at that point it's probably not worth trying to fix it


you can download a free trial of it but I think it's better to download hiren's bootcd (as this cd has many other things on it that can be used for fixing doing other things)

hiren's
http://rapidshare.com/files/286833806/Hiren_s_BootCD_v10.02.rar

click on the free user button under the speedometer and wait for the seconds to count down


now to do this, you'll need another PC that is working.. one that can burn a cd .. and you'll need to know how to burn an ISO file

and you will need to have winrar to uncompress the hirens file... the trial version of winrar is fine.. it only gives a nag screen but will continue to work

http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm

you'll probably want the 32bit version unless you know for sure that you have a 64bit version of OS.. you can choose your own language one or the english one which is http://www.rarlab.com/rar/wrar390.exe

once installed find and double click on the hiren's bootcd.rar file.. when the rar window opens.. highlight the iso file (you won't need the other things) then click on the extract button at top and choose a location... (just remember where)

next you will need a good cd burning program.. most of them can burn an iso file (creating a bootable cd image cd) ... nero is what many use but I use one called ashampoo burning studio.. I use a portable version of it.. here is a link for that.

http://rapidshare.com/files/292887674/Ash.Burning.Studio.9.20.rar



once you install and start it up, you choose "create burn a disc image" and then the top pne "burn a cd/dvd/blueray from a disc image " and then browse to where you had extracted the hiren's iso.. once that is done put it in the cd drive and boot up.. if your bios is set to boot from cd/dvd first then your hard drive you should see a screen that gives you an option to boot to hiren's.. use the arrow key to move to that choice and hit enter..

then you'll get to a menu.. in that menu choose hard disk tools and then HDD regenerator.. from there, follow prompts and have it start from the default sector 0... the first few gig's of space is where the OS will reside so if you have errrors there.. it quike likey could be your reason for blue screens.. hopefully
it will only be a few sectors it finds bad... and also hopefully it can repair them..

but... like I said these blue screens can be many types of problems.. you will have to see what the error says (and tell me too)

if worse come to worse and it looks like you have to reload your operating system.. then I can find you links to download it.. it will also be an iso file so you'd need to burn it like I showed you with hiren's... would you be ok with an english version of xp (or vista if your pc can run it) or would you prefer that I find links to the OS in your language ? or maybe you know someone that has a cd of it already ?...

if you have to reload.. then you might also want to backup any files you want to save.. that might be a problem to do this unless you take out this hard drive and install it into another computer as a slave drive and copy the files..




just in case you need to download and burn windows xp and reinstall.... after it's installed you'd need to do this to make/keep xp genuine (as if you don't, and go to MS for security updates.. it will flag you as being non-genuine and block you from updates and you'll have to run a remove wga program before appying this reg file



http://www.mydigitallife.info/2006/11/05/ways-to-crack-and-disable-wga-validation-tool-and-wga-notifications-plus-download-and-install-bypassing-genuine-windows-validate-requirement/



http://www.bloggersbase.com/computers/registry-hack-to-make-your-windows-xp-genuine/



Open a 'New Text Document' (Notepad) and type in the following:
(better copy and paste as it is)

do not copy the ====='s only the words and numbers

========
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WPAEvents]
"OOBETimer"=hex:ff,d5,71,d6,8b,6a,8d,6f,d5,33,93,fd
"LastWPAEventLogged"=hex:d5,07,05,00,06,00,07,00,0f,00,38,00,24,00,fd,02

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion]
"CurrentBuild"="1.511.1 () (Obsolete data - do not use)"
"InstallDate"=dword:427cdd95
"ProductId"="69831-640-1780577-45389"
"DigitalProductId"=hex:a4,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,36,39,38,33,31,2d,36,34,30,2d,\
31,37,38,30,35,37,37,2d,34,35,33,38,39,00,5a,00,00,00,41,32,32,2d,30,30,30,\
30,31,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,0d,04,89,b2,15,1b,c4,ee,62,4f,e6,64,6f,01,00,\
00,00,00,00,27,ed,85,43,a2,20,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,31,34,35,30,34,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,ce,0e,\
00,00,12,42,15,a0,00,08,00,00,87,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,94,a2,b3,ac
"LicenseInfo"=hex:9e,bf,09,d0,3a,76,a5,27,bb,f2,da,88,58,ce,58,e9,05,6b,0b,82,\
c3,74,ab,42,0d,fb,ee,c3,ea,57,d0,9d,67,a5,3d,6e,42,0d,60,c0,1a,70,24,46,16,\
0a,0a,ce,0d,b8,27,4a,46,53,f3,17

=========

Save the file with File Name XP GENUINE.REG
In place of XP GENUINE you can give any name of your choice but the important things to take care of when saving this notepad file are

----------> save the file name with .REG extension as its related to registry

----------> Change the Save as Type from Text Documents(*.txt) to All files


once saved, you can right click on it and choose merge with registry


ok.. that's it for now.. I just got home from work and wrote this... now I need some sleep... so try and find out what the error is and answer the questions i had asked..