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Computer Blue Screens no matter what the fuck I do.
maximumzero
I...wait, what?New Orleans, LARegistered User regular
I...wait, what?New Orleans, LARegistered User regular
My boss at my place of work gave me a Dell computer to fix up for him so the lady at the front desk can use it. He said his kids had essentially trashed it, so I agreed, as I figured it was a simple matter of popping in the restore CD and cleaning it up to factory fresh.
Well, it's turning out it's not that simple. I can insert either a Windows XP CD or the Dell Restore CD, and I get a Blue screen 'o death right after the Windows Setup program gets to the "starting windows" portion. I can't even get as far as to format the hard drive.
So I ran a ubuntu live cd and formatted the drive, trying to wipe out any viruses and what have you, and then tried to run the Windows setup CD again. Still a blue screen. Linux runs without problem, even after installing it, so it doesn't seem to be a hardware issue, and the computer doesn't have a floppy drive so I can't run a win98 boot disk to fdisk the fucker.
I've been doing this for the last three hours to no avail. Thoughts?
Well, it's turning out it's not that simple. I can insert either a Windows XP CD or the Dell Restore CD, and I get a Blue screen 'o death right after the Windows Setup program gets to the "starting windows" portion. I can't even get as far as to format the hard drive.
So I ran a ubuntu live cd and formatted the drive, trying to wipe out any viruses and what have you, and then tried to run the Windows setup CD again. Still a blue screen. Linux runs without problem, even after installing it, so it doesn't seem to be a hardware issue, and the computer doesn't have a floppy drive so I can't run a win98 boot disk to fdisk the fucker.
I've been doing this for the last three hours to no avail. Thoughts?
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Download this:
http://www.memtest86.com/memtest86-3.4a.iso.zip
Burn it to a CD (you can use your Mac to do this), boot it, and let it run for a while. It'll report any errors due to bad RAM.
The other suspect is the HD. I'm not sure how you'd test that if the machine won't boot without buying some kind of diagnostic tool, but a replacement is surely around if there are a lot of computers in the workplace.
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
If you have some spare machines lying around (although it kinda sounds like you don't, with your boss bringing in a machine from home), then you might as well just swap out the RAM for some stuff that you know (or think) is good. I wasted a day running memtest (let it go over night) and never had it fail. Swapped out the RAM and the problem didn't exist anymore... tried a few combinations to nut out which stick was bad and done! Didn't take more than half an hour (including a brief chat to a colleague about the previous night's episode of top gear).
Also, again, if you have a working machine handy, try banging the HD into it an installing the OS. Then chuck it back in the faulting machine and see if you can boot it up and get everything else set up. I figure that if you can get the OS installed and it doesn't fault again while you're installing drivers and apps, then good enough.
I might have a little 4GB drive somewhere around the house I can try to install onto, and my only other computer in the house that I could put the hard drive into to test doesn't have SATA, which the computer with the problems has uses.
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
Here's the error message:
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
Basically what's happening is that Windows setup is copying over all of the files for the install, then when it restarts and tries to boot from the hard drive to finish the install, it tells you that it can't find the files (in the form of a 7B) error because the install that is running can't see the hard drive. Yes I know that sounds retarded but that might help you out.
There might be some kind of controller drivers you need to load for windows.
EDIT: I was reading some more into it and another thing that can cause it is a bad Windows disc. It basically creates the same "can't read from media" error that brings up the 7B stop. If you have another disc you can use it might be worth a shot to check that first.
Also, it *could* be a hardware issue - Linux may not be using all devices if they are random/unsupported vendors.
I don't believe it's a bad disc, as I've tried both a XP Pro Sp3 disc and the actual Dell restore CD, and both act the same way.
Would it help if I got you guys the model # of the computer?
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
Post the model number too, and any other specs you can dig up.
Probably a driver/BIOS issue if your ram is OK.
It's a Dell Dimension E520.
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
Edit:
And here as well:
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
I'll try this when I get home, thanks.
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
It turns out the problem was that I had connected my SSD drive (OCS Vertex 3) onto the Marvell SATA controller/connector on the motherboard (Maximus 4 Extreme-Z).
I disconnected it and plugged it into the Intel SATA conroller/connector (also 6gb/s) and the problem went away completely.
I'm too lazy now to look up what SATA controllers your board uses, but try connecting the drive cable to a different controller/connector. It's worth a shot.