Strange boot failure issue

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Hey, all.

Someone brought be a 3-year-old Dell (P4 2.8) to fix which refuses to boot. I do not know its history.

When it tries to boot, everything seems okay at first. The Windows screen even comes up for about 10 seconds. However, before it ever boots, it has a blue screen failure, and gives every time the same error:

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Every time--except, that is, when I try safe mode. Then I *always* get the following error:

An attempt was made to write to read-only memory.

I removed the hard disk from the Dell and inserted it into an entirely new system. Same errors! So it must be a software issue.

Is there any way to repair this problem without re-installing Windows? Thanks in advance!

 

[imported_importpsycho]

just googled IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
and returned tons of hits
didn't read all of them but few of them points to hardware failure
you can look it up yourself, there got to be a solution to this in one of them

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Well, I've already tried Google, and couldn't isolate the issue. Like I said, though, it can't be a hardware problem unless it is the hard disk itself--and that is unlikely, given the consistency of the symptoms. But thankyou.