need help with linux and windows error message (hardware related)

[mcveigh]

I am trying to figure out what's wrong with my daughters PC.
specs:
MSI socket A mobo, XP2200+ CPU, 2x256MB ram, seagate HD, etc.

XP Pro reboots as soon as it trys to load, booting from the XP cd and any option I try (install or recovery) gives me a BSOD with NTFS.SYS problem, PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

I've tried removing everything except the HD, 1 stick of ram (tried this with both sticks), and an optical drive
still get that error no matter what I do.

So I tried booting up with knoppix security tools Dist.

I keep getting this error message:

Kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -S-K block-major-3, errno=2
VFS: cant open root device "" or 03:01
unable to mount root fs on 03:01

I thought this sounded ram related. I finally got knoppix to boot using 1 specific stick of ram in 1 specific slot.

BUT windows still gives me a BSOD no matter what.

I can't find my memtest86 CD right now.

I was just hoping someone might have some ideas. I'm thinking motherboard or CPU myself.

thanks

 

[drag]

Yep that definately can be RAM related.

The only realy effective test is to boot up with Memtest86. It's a small program so you can easily boot it off of a floppy disk if you want to and they have floppy images aviable. In the zip on memtest86+ (I realy don't know which is better, memtest86 or memtest86+ ) they provide a 'rawrite' program which is a dos-style program for writing images out to disks like floppies.

Another thing you will want to do is carefully inspect the motherboard. Look for any bulging or leaking capaciters. Inexpensive (aka PC) motherboards use chemical-based transistors (edit: omg? did I say transisters?? I ment _capaciters_. Stupid me.) that look like little miniture pop-cans. Silver-colored tops with dark covers on the side that sit vertically off the motherboards. Look for any that don't have flat tops or are leaking any sort of fluid or gummy gunk.

 

[hasu]

Originally posted by: mcveigh
So I tried booting up with knoppix security tools Dist.
I can't find my memtest86 CD right now.
thanks

Many Linux installation CDs (including ubuntu, MEPIS) as well as the installed OS has an option to invoke memtest86 in the GRUB menu.