Assistance w/Win XP Blue Screen crashes!

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I know... I know... the "blue screen of death"... I've spent the last 6 hours trying to solve this issue and I'm at a loss... I need some help.

I'm running Windows XP (SP2) -

Here's the issue:
first off, I just installed a brand new HDD. Everything was fine, great actually, for the past week since I installed it. I know that the BSOD I'm getting has something to do with this recent upgrade. For the record, I've never had a BSOD before. I'm a first timer. Today I was sitting running normal applications and going about my business when my computer locked up. It stayed this way for a minute and then I received the "generic host process for Win32 services has encountered a problem and needs to close" message. I clicked "Close" and boom... Blue Screen of Death. The error code read: STOP: 0x0000000F4. I googled this and got some sites that attempted to solve the issue... but nothing is working. Also, most people get this message after resuming from standby mode. I did not. It came randomly while using my computer.

I tried just a simple reboot... result: BSOD
I tried booting in safe mode... result: BSOD
I tried restarting to "last good working configuration"... result: BSOD
I tried chkdsk... result: I get a bunch of "file record segment ####### is unreadable" messages, then BSOD.
I tried shutting down my computer, opening the case, and re-seating the drive to make sure it wasn't knocked loose somehow during the installation... result: B-friggin'_SOD!

I simply can't even access windows without it immediately giving me the blasted blue screen!

The one thing I haven't tried is "repairing" windows via the windows install disk... there's only one problem: My computer never came with a windows disk. It's the HP pavilion DV6000t model in which you create your own recovery DVD's. I have 3 recovery DVD's and I have no idea which one has windows on it.

I know I'm asking a lot here... but this scenario seems pretty unique (I can't find any others on the internet that have had this problem). I know it must have to do with my upgraded HDD... maybe I got a defective one?! I refuse to believe it. There must be a way to fix this. If anyone can take the time to give me some professional suggestions (no unexperienced suggestions please) that would be great.

Thank you,

 

Do you still have your old hard disk? I'd try popping that back in. If that's ok I'd re-install the OS on the new hard disk and try again. If it happens again on the new hard disk after an OS re-install it'll be a dodgy disk. Dodgy hard disks can cause BSODs if there's an issue with the drive spinning, often due to long term heat exposure deforming the ball bearings. In this case it is probably just defective.

In the UK, if something is sold defective it is the duty of the vendor to replace it.

 

I tried chkdsk... result: I get a bunch of "file record segment ####### is unreadable" messages, then BSOD.

The hard drive is dying. Return it.

 

That's the short answer! A Zero or format could cure it (? maybe?) but you'd have a good case for getting the vendor to replace it.

 

Dying? Already... after like 6 days? Please tell me this happens a lot... I have the old disc, but I wiped it clean... it's sitting in an external case now just for extra storage I guess. I suppose I could reinstall that old drive and re-install windows (and everything else)?

I'll wait to make sure there aren't any more responses before I mess with the drives some more.

By the way, I'm using my other Acer laptop to communicate on this forum. My HP with the crap drive is sitting on the floor right now... waiting for some help.

 

Couple thoughts...

1. When you get the BSOD, do you get any file name associated with it? iaStor.sys or something like that? It may be a driver problem.

2. Have you tried connecting the new drive to another computer via a USB cable? You can get a USB to IDE/SATA connector and try that. Basically, at that point the drive is acting like an external hard drive. If you can do this and use it on another computer and it works fine, then you knows its a driver problem.

3. When you say you have 3 Recovery DVDs and you don't know which one has Windows on it, then you are mistakenly assuming that Windows is on one of them. Put in the first DVD and power on your computer. It will boot from the DVD (check the boot menu if it doesn't) and allow you to try to repair your installation. You can also do a complete restore to factory settings using those DVDs.

4. When you ran chkdsk, with which option did you run it? There are two if I remember right.

Edit:
5. When you boot up, press F10 or whatever your key is for more startup options and then try to boot to the Windows recovery console.

 

Chkdsk ran automatically when I restarted the first time. I can't get it to boot up enough for windows to fully start, so I can't run it myself.

I believe F8 is the button that I push to get to the startup options menu. What will windows recovery console do?

Thank you.

 

You say that you have the restore discs, then use them. You won't have a recovery partition on your new HDD. If a full restore/format doesn't work, get your new HDD replaced.

And you're going to want to change your sig. www.bestbuysux.org shut down a while ago.

 

Ha... thanks. I will do that.

I have the 3 restore DVD's that I made when I got the computer. If the disc is dying though (as someone mentioned above), does that mean that physically it won't be working for much longer? So a full restore/format won't matter right? There aren't many documents I need, but is there a way to access them before I wipe the drive?

 

You can pull the drive and hook it up to another computer with USB. If the drive isn't completely dead, the data will be accessible.

 

That would be called a 'soft' bad sector. I've had one, and they are solved by COMPLETELY wiping the drive, writing all zeros, and reformatting.

Its possible this guy has that, but in any event that drive is suspect and needs to be closely monitored. More likely than not it is a physical problem though.

I've had a few die pretty quickly, one took two months. But yes, the biggest chance of failure is right away within a month or two. After that, you probably have a driver that is going to last a long time.

 

From recovery console, you can do some stuff like run chkdsk if necessary.

 

I should also mention that using the restore disks can do a restore and you will lose all your data. Make sure you read the descriptions carefully. If you do a factory restore, you will lose your data files that you have just told us that you wanted.

I would HIGHLY recommend connecting that drive to another computer through USB and saving your files before doing anything else.

Once you have them saved, then you can plug in back in and see if it works again. This can happen sometimes. If it doesn't, then you can use the recovery DVDs and restore.

 

If i just stick it in an enclosure I can do the same thing right?

Thanks... I'll rep all you guys, and anyone who responds!

 

You can use an enclosure. Put it in, connect it to the computer and power it on. It should pop up in Windows.

After you have saved your files, take it out of the enclosure and plug it back into your original computer.

I don't know why, but several times, I had a drive that seemed bad. Wouldn't boot, like yours. After connecting it to another computer, more specifically, my Windows Vista Business laptop, I was able to save my files.

I then plugged the the drive back into the original computer intending to restore it to factory settings. The first time I did this, the drive booted up to Windows. For some reason, and I don't know the answer (although I suspect it has something to do with Vista trying to see the drive previously), the drive was fixed.

Just this weekend, a friend's computer went down. I did the exact same thing but I plugged it into his extra computer, running Windows XP. XP saw the drive as completely empty.

I plugged it into my laptop and it took a few minutes, but then it saw the drive and showed all the files on it. Don't ask me why because I don't know.

Hope this helps.

 

Maybe he should do the full format while its still on the enclosure, even do diskchecks with whatever program you can throw at it. After you backed up your stuff of course

What brand HDD is it anyway?

 

Brand doesn't matter in terms of functionality. Might matter in terms of reliability, although I wouldn't say any one brand is much better than the others.

And about the format, well, HP's restore does a format before it installs if you select the full restore option. Doesn't do any disk checks, but it does format the drive.

 

It's the new Hitachi 7K200 7200RPM notebook drive... I needed an upgrade (even though my stock Seagate momentus was perfectly fine - just needed more room for digital video editing and faster read/writes), and this was (and still is) on sale at Newegg w/rebate for a very reasonable price. It was fine until now... just real loud (not abnormal sounds... just the spinning of the drive is very audible).

 

Hmmm.. not sure what you mean.

 

Do a recovery with original HDD? Then get an enclosure see if the new HDD can be recognized? If so back up files then put new HDD in and do a recovery. Because you can't get into Windows even if this is somehow a software issue (code) it is completely uncorrectable so no more point in trying. If you can't get in you can't fix.

 

Do a full format first on the hdd first to clear everything out completely. This will completely wipe the hdd clean

 

Great! Lose all data! OK, that is why he came here? OP never thought of that?

And has been suggested already.

 

Obviously after hes put it in an enclosure and backed up all his stuff like mentioned earlier...

 

Yea!

No comment!

It is not as obvious as you seem to think. Any way OP wanted to limit posts.

 

Hello.. I'm back. So in case anyone is still following this thread... I took my new drive out of my computer. Put it in my external enclosure. Hooked it up to my other computer and managed to transfer all of my important documents to my external. No problems there. My question is: if the drive is supposedly dying, then why does it work perfectly fine in the enclosure?!! I'm beginning to wonder that maybe it isn't the new drive after all that's causing these BSOD's...

 

Hey Ardroth.

Glad you were able to save your stuff. I would recommend that you attempt to connect your hard drive to your old computer, and see if it now works. It may boot up without a problem. I've honestly seen it happen.

You say that the problem may not be the hard drive. That's possible, but it doesn't sound like it. Just to be sure though, have you done any other changes to your computer after changing hard drives? Installed programs that may cause conflicts? Added other hardware? Maybe changed drivers?

Any of those things could possibly cause problems. If you continue getting BSOD, and you think that the problem may be something other than the hard drive, (in other words you are able to log into windows without getting a BSOD), then try doing a system restore. Go back to an earlier point before the problems started happening and see if the problems continue.

 

Hey... the only thing I did was to update the drivers (in device manage right clicked and hit "update driver"). Could that be the problem?

 

I had BSOD issues I could not not fix once myself.. I went to DOZENS of forums.. every one I could find.. I finally found ONE forum with ONE member who knew exactly what was going on:

http://www.pchelpforum.com/pc-hardware/

Go post there. Prepare to attach your dump log.

 

What is a dump log?

 

Hello...

Back... again... getting tired of this. Here's what I did in (if you are new, please read the rest of the thread):

Put new "bad" drive in enclosure - Worked fine.
Backed up files.
Put back in computer.
Did a full reformat/recovery using my recovery discs (painful...)
Recovery/reformat 100% successful.
Everything was perfectly fine... I was on my way to re-installing all my software and getting my PC "back to normal" when today I got another Blue Screen of F'in death. I was actually copying a folder from my external back-up drive to my computer when it locked up and shut down.

THIS TIME I got the "Kernal_Stack_inpage_error" w/0x00000077 message. I googled it... wrote down all the suggestions I could find. I re-booted and the automated chkdsk ran. Corrected everything, and I thought all was well. It re-started again, and NOW (just 10 mins ago) I get THIS BSOD:

"Unmountable_boot_volume" - 0x000000ED
Now this one really confuses me... I looked on the microsoft support site and the stuff they suggest is beyond my narrow scope of computer comprehension.

Seriously... is it the disk or not? Right now I'm really thinking that my disk is bad and I need to have it replaced. But before I do that I'd like to try and fix this series of BSOD. if it happens again I'm definitely replacing it. I need some help... any encouragement and suggestions welcome. I'm just going to turn off my computer for now and wait for replies here... my trusted source for support!

I also have no idea how to access, view, and copy my "event dump log" either... if you can help me there too that would be cool...

Thanks.

 

Personally i would have used this as an excuse to upgrade my drive to something better.

 

That's the thing... the drive I'm using IS something better! I upgraded my stock drive (Which was about 1.5 years old - 120G 5400rpm seagate momentus) to a 200gb 7200rpm drive! None of this crap happened until after I upgraded the drive... after a successful re-install I was convinced the drive was fine and I eliminated the problem. However, now after this (see previous post) I am becoming more and more convinced it's the disk... a defective disk.

 

re-post (bump):

Back... again... getting tired of this. Here's what I did in (if you are new, please read the rest of the thread):

Put new "bad" drive in enclosure - Worked fine.
Backed up files.
Put back in computer.
Did a full reformat/recovery using my recovery discs (painful...)
Recovery/reformat 100% successful.
Everything was perfectly fine... I was on my way to re-installing all my software and getting my PC "back to normal" when today I got another Blue Screen of F'in death. I was actually copying a folder from my external back-up drive to my computer when it locked up and shut down.

THIS TIME I got the "Kernal_Stack_inpage_error" w/0x00000077 message. I googled it... wrote down all the suggestions I could find. I re-booted and the automated chkdsk ran. Corrected everything, and I thought all was well. It re-started again, and NOW (just 10 mins ago) I get THIS BSOD:

"Unmountable_boot_volume" - 0x000000ED
Now this one really confuses me... I looked on the microsoft support site and the stuff they suggest is beyond my narrow scope of computer comprehension.

Seriously... is it the disk or not? Right now I'm really thinking that my disk is bad and I need to have it replaced. But before I do that I'd like to try and fix this series of BSOD. if it happens again I'm definitely replacing it. I need some help... any encouragement and suggestions welcome. I'm just going to turn off my computer for now and wait for replies here... my trusted source for support!

I also have no idea how to access, view, and copy my "event dump log" either... if you can help me there too that would be cool...

Thanks.

 

I meant upgrading to something even better (like a different brand maybe)

Since you said its a new HD you might wanna check your warranty and request a replacement. Well youve done a full format/recovery that rules out software issues which most likely leaves it to hardware problem.

 

Yeah... i see. I was considering that actually. I'm still within the 30-day replacement time frame for Newegg... I can get a replacement. But if I return it and go with something else (I was looking at the seagate momentus 7200.2) I would have to pay their stupid 15% re-stocking fee... which I believe is completely unjustified if the product you get is defective. So, I'm most likely going to send it in for replacement... get the new one, see if it's any better. If not, send it back for a refund and go with something else (or revert back to my stock drive).

However, before sending it back I'm just trying to absolutely make sure that the problem is with the hardware (HDD) and not my computer. As I said, it crashed 3 times, with 3 different error messages.

 

I think the restocking fee is only for refunds. It doesnt count if the product is replacement DOA's or defective products.

 

Ardroth, if you have done a full restore and the problem still happens, then the issue is probably with the drive.

If I could actually look at it in person, or if you had another computer repair person look at it, then maybe they could find another problem.

However, it seems as if it would be far easier for you to just have the drive sent in. If Newegg wants an explanation, tell them about the problems you have had and the steps you have taken to fix them. That should suffice. I've never had a problem with Newegg replacing things.

If the same problem exists after replacing the drive, then you know the drive wasn't the problem. However, if you did a full restore, then that is extremely unlikely.

 

Thanks for the comments. I went ahead with the RMA. I'll update when I get the new drive.

 

Oh... I was reading the reviews of the Hitachi 7k200 drive I have on Newegg... One guy said that this drive is not compatible with Windows XP running on Intel Core 2 duo processors!. Well, this happens to be the current configuration of my system. Does anyone know anything about the validity of this statement? I sent an email to Hitachi customer support as well to see if they can clarify... if it's true, then it looks like I'm going to have to sell that drive, cuz there's no way I'm upgrading to Vista just for a drive. If anyone knows anything about this, please let me know (I'm not expecting to hear back from Hitachi!).

 

I have never heard of anything like that. The only time a hard drive won't work with a certain computer is if the motherboard won't take that type.

Hard drives are either IDEs or SATAs. IDE type hard drives are older and older motherboards may not support SATA drives. They won't have the port to plug a SATA cable into.

If your motherboard has the port for the hard drive that you are using, then it should work fine.

I've never heard of a processor (Inter Core 2 Duo in your case) not being compatible with a hard drive.

 

No, not after 6 days. The moment it left the factory. It's just a defective drive.
That happens from time to time.

As piratey said, I've never heard of harddrives not being compatible with specific OS'es. If Hitachi can confirm that, I suppose that explains the problem. Otherwise I'd get it replaced.

Not sure on the exact meaning, but it's related to paging, which is related to the harddrive.

It couldn't mount the harddrive to boot from.

So yeah, given the BSOD's you're getting, it definitely seems to be the harddrive. Now the only question is if it's some kind of compatibility issue with XP (which sounds strange), or if the disk just doesn't work.

 

Jalf, thanks for the reply. Repping now (I've been spreading reputation to everyone who responds to this post).

RMA should be here in a week... I'll post my updates.

 

Update:

I got a response from Hitachi after I emailed them regarding compatibility. The results = not good. Turns out, The 7k200 drive is NOT compatible with the HP DV6000 series notebooks. So looks like when my RMA comes in I'll be putting it right up for sale! If you're interested, check the Classified folder (or just PM me).

Here's the link Hitachi sent me indicating which models this drive is compatible with:

http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/4430CFD61EDBC654862572D6005E1F44/$file/7K200_com.pdf

 

Thats absurd... hard to believe its not compatible with dv6000

 

Tell me about it... sucks. I've been using my stock drive again for the past 5 days, and it's been perfect. Nice and quiet... stable... I'll stick with this some more until I decide to upgrade again.

 

Wow. That does surprise me. I know the processor shouldn't matter, like I said before, but I am surprise about the notebook itself not being compatible. Did they happen to give a reason?

 

No, none at all. I probably should have reviewed/researched more before I actually bought the drive. I might have been able to figure it out BEFORE I installed it. DV6000 notebooks are extremely popular... Hitachi needs to get on the ball here.

 

I know the popularity. I bought my brother the dv6500. I'm really surprised that the drive is not compatible.

Has Newegg taken it back from you?

 

It's on RMA right now for a replacement... I didn't want to bother with the 15% restocking fee (+ the return shipping puts me out a lot of money!). I figured I would be better off selling it to get back what I paid, and then go for something else. So once the replacement comes in (any day now) I'll be putting it right up for sale.