• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Windows XP BSOD on Setup/Repair

The Merg

The Merg

Golden Member
I was working on a computer (Dell Dimension 4600i) cleaning off trojans and viruses as the computer had no anti-virus software on it. I believed I had gotten most of it as after using Kaspersky and AVG, nothing was being found on subsequent scans.

I was preparing to install an anti-spyware software and was rebooting. From that point on, I kept getting BSOD Stop Error 0xD1 (DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL). It does not display any driver that might be causing the issue. I was not able even get into Safe Mode. It would either crash after getting to the User Logon screen or right after I selected a user.

I tried removing all other hardware and all but one RAM chip. I then tried to perform a Windows Repair (Windows XP Home - SP1A Dell Repair CD). It would get to 34 minutes remaining while installing hardware and then would crash again. I tried swapping out RAM and then started getting another Stop Error 0x7A (KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR). Once again, no driver was listed as a cause. The strange thing is that I would get 0xD1 if the RAM was 128MB PC3200 and the 0x7A error if the RAM was 256MB PC2100. I also tried a working 512MB PC3200 from another system and go the 0x7A error as well, so the error is not related to the memory speed.

It does sometimes not crash at the 34 minute mark. In these cases, it will prompt me that "Windows cannot load the installer for MEDIA". It will then go through a list of other devices that it cannot load the installer for and then continue down to 33 minutes. It then reboots and starts over again.

Besides installing a fresh copy of Windows and wiping the drive to see if that resolves the error, does anyone have any insights or thoughts regarding these errors?

Thanks in advance,
Merg
 
That may be what I end up doing. Along with verifying that the install process works actually works as I would need to install XP on the new harddrive, I would then be able to copy over data from the original harddrive so that I can then wipe it and start over again. I was just hoping to avoid having to "install" XP multiple times in order to correct this problem.

Does anyone remember off-hand if performing a "fresh" install of XP from a CD actually wipes data from the harddrive or is it similar to the repair option? I always forget and have not used the "fresh" install option in quite some time on an already used harddrive.

Thanks,
Merg
 
Sound like Windows is so corrupt it wont boot you could try running chkdsk from commandl ine on drive using Windows repair option.
 
Tried it. It found nothing wrong. Just for kicks I even had it recreate the boot sector to no avail.

- Merg
 
Originally posted by: The Merg
That may be what I end up doing. Along with verifying that the install process works actually works as I would need to install XP on the new harddrive, I would then be able to copy over data from the original harddrive so that I can then wipe it and start over again. I was just hoping to avoid having to "install" XP multiple times in order to correct this problem.

Does anyone remember off-hand if performing a "fresh" install of XP from a CD actually wipes data from the harddrive or is it similar to the repair option? I always forget and have not used the "fresh" install option in quite some time on an already used harddrive.

Thanks,
Merg
Click to expand...

i can't quite recall the full details, but i know when you do a fresh install of windows xp, it gives you the option of doing a quick format or a full format. I don't recall if it only does that when you delete the partition and recreate a new one. Or if it also does it when you tell the windows xp setup to use a partition that has been created already.
 
Well it sounds like you gonna need to reinstall Windows and start over which is probably the best thing anyways as it seems like even it you get it working again it could flake out again. That said I would recommend you either copy all your important file from the drives first and then do a full format/install to remove all traces of the old setup. You could also remove the hard drive and install to a new one and then copy files over from the problem hard drive.
 
Yeah, what I'll probably end up doing is installing XP on a spare drive and booting up with that. I'll then copy all the data from the problem drive onto it. I'll then reconnect the problem drive as the master and format/install XP back on it again. Once that one boots up, I'll copy the files back from the spare drive. I was just hoping to avoid doing a fresh install and then having to perform all the XP updates again to get back up to SP3 and beyond...

- Merg
 
Originally posted by: The Merg
Yeah, what I'll probably end up doing is installing XP on a spare drive and booting up with that. I'll then copy all the data from the problem drive onto it. I'll then reconnect the problem drive as the master and format/install XP back on it again. Once that one boots up, I'll copy the files back from the spare drive. I was just hoping to avoid doing a fresh install and then having to perform all the XP updates again to get back up to SP3 and beyond...

- Merg
Click to expand...

if you can your hands on a drive imaging software, when you install windows xp on the spare drive and everything setup on it, you can image the hard drive, then run the imaging program when the computer is booting up, and you can reimage the old hard drive without having to reinstall windows xp on to it. good program for doing this is acronis true image. They have a 15 or 30 day free trial you can download.
 
Originally posted by: sonoma1993


if you can your hands on a drive imaging software, when you install windows xp on the spare drive and everything setup on it, you can image the hard drive, then run the imaging program when the computer is booting up, and you can reimage the old hard drive without having to reinstall windows xp on to it. good program for doing this is acronis true image. They have a 15 or 30 day free trial you can download.
Click to expand...

Leave it to me to make things more difficult than they are. I have Norton Ghost. What I will probably do is install the fresh copy on the spare drive and then copy over the data from the old drive. Then I'll just Ghost over from the spare to the old drive. Hopefully that will take care of things... Definitely quicker... Thanks for bringing it up...

- Merg
 
Well as long as you using Norton Ghost you should back up your new setup as ofter as possible then next time Windows flakes out you can restore the last good image. FYI I keep 3 backups images of my system doing a backup every few days or anytime done major updates so I can always restore the image if needed. Why keep more than one image? I have found sometime image doest restore properly of I have had image with a virus on it as it wasn't discovered right away so then i can revert to older image.
 
Yeah, this all had to do with a computer I was fixing for someone. They had the Personal AV trojan app on their computer. I discovered that they were not using any firewall, antivirus, or spyware software. I managed to clean off 53 viruses/trojans, yet I think when one of them was cleaned it corrupted a driver.

Once I get the new install set up, I'll be installing either Avira or AVG, Spybot, and a freeware firewall app in order to protect the computer.

- Merg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top