Tag Archives: bsod

Installing XP onto SATA hard drive

Computer Aid Posted on by

What sounds like a simple task can sometime end up being more complicated than you think.

In this case, a customer purchased a new PC, which had a new SATA2 hard drive and a SATA DVD-RW.

But he couldn’t install XP.

Either the XP CD would say “Setup did not find any disk drives installed in your computer” or:

Sometime XP would install, but after a reboot, XP would Generate a blue screen error (BSOD).

The first thing I did was to go into the BIOS and change the HDD SATA mode from enhanced to “compatible”. This makes the BIOS treat the SATA hard drive as an older IDE HDD.

But even after that, the BIOS would sometimes not detect the CD drive or the HDD or both (depending on which sata socket the devices were plugged into).

There were 4 SATA plugs on the motherboard… 2 red and 2 black

It seemed obvious that the SATA plugs were mapped as the old IDE master and slave setup. The red plugs were the primary drives, while the black plugs were the secondary drives.

After a while I noticed that the SATA drives were only detected if they were in the “master” plug.

After some careful thought, I realised the hard drive and/or the DVD-RW might be trying to run in “SATA2” mode (ie Sata 300), but the motherboard/BIOS might not work properly when it is set to compatibility/ATA mode.

So I pull out the HDD and DVD-RW drive, and I see that the HDD has a jumper to force it to work in SATA 150 mode. I install the jumper.

After that, XP installed without a hitch.

So remember: Don’t just change the BIOS SATA settings, you might also need to add a jumper to the HDD itself.

stop 0X000000EA ati2dvag.dll blue screen

Computer Aid Posted on by

This started out as an annoying “PC won’t start” problem.

I say annoying because I saw no problem after 1 hour in front of the PC.

So I did some tuning and some stress testing during that time.

About 2 weeks later I’m called back again, as the PC is not starting again.

This time I can see the problem: PC gets most of the way to starting XP, and then re-starts.

I’m tempted to say: power supply.

But I decide to try safe mode first: and safe mode works perfectly.

OK, at the next restart, I hit F8, and then choose: “disable automatic restart…”

Now I get to see the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)

The important bits are: 0X000000EA ati2dvag.dll

Now its obvious: its the ATI video card.

I replace it with an Nvidia card, but now the PC refuses to start at all.

Hmmm, I take a closer look at the case and AGP slot, and it looks like the MOBO and case are slightly out of alignment… the AGP card doesn’t slide in as easily as it should.

After some careful adjustments, I eventually get the card to slide in correctly, and the PC start correctly.

I run the kids “spiderman” game for a few minutes to make sure, and I have no further problems!

bsod screensaver installed by malware

Computer Aid Posted on by

Interesting malware.

Recently, I’ve found some infected systems that will also install the BSOD screensaver.

At first, I thought the customer (or someone related) had installed the BSOD screensaver as a joke, and it was unrelated to the infection.

But the first time this happened, the customer called me a few days later to say that something was still wrong with the system… I was told: The system would show a “blue screen with white writing”, and then the PC would restart.

I know I wouldn’t leave a system in such a state (and I had forgotten about the BSOD screensaver…), so I re-visited the customer as soon as possible.

I was not happy to see that the system was working fine and the BSOD (blue screen of death) would go away by just moving the mouse.

BSOD

However, changing the screensaver wasn’t as easy as I thought… the malware had also hidden some tabs from the display properties (desktop tab and screen saver tab).

So after some fishing around I found that a minor change in the registry made the tabs re-appear (go to HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesSystem , and delete the NoDispScrSavPage and NoDispBackgroundPage keys.

Blue screen (0X0000007e) when moving between amd and intel

Computer Aid Posted on by

As mentioned in a previous post, I decide (for stability and throughput reasons) to change my main system from a “newish” AMD Sempron 2800+  to an old Intel P4 2.6Ghz.

I swap the motherboards, run the XP repair install, and the intel system is up and running (mostly).

I do the usual search for drivers, and I get the ethernet going, but the onboard sound doesn’t work… and the PC freezes at some point.

Being the eternal optimist, I reboot and give the system another chance.

But the lockups keep happening.

I try using linux, but still no sound… the drivers are setup correctly, as the system goes through the motions of playing, with equalisers pulsing, showing what the sound would “look” like… just nothing coming out of the green plug.

And the system cannot run for more than 2 hours without a lockup… looks like a trip back to [censored] for a replacement.

So I look at temporarily reinstating the sempron system.

I put the AMD mobo back, do a repair install, but after the initial copy of files, and the necessary reboot into a GUI install to complete the XP installation, I get a glimpse of a blue screen of death (BSOD), and the system restarts (where the process repeats).

Pressing F8, and choosing “disable automatic restart on system failure”, lets me get a good look at the BSOD:

STOP: 0x0000007E (0xC0000005,0xBA278750,0xBA4C7430,0xBA4C712C)

A search finds a few tentative solutions.

I try the chkdsk /f c: … but it doesn’t help

The strange thing is that linux and bartPE work just fine, so there isn’t a hardware problem.

I eventually get an answer that works:

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic21621-2.html

In particular, the solution by alisvolat on the 25/04/2007 is exactly what I need… from bartPE, I rename  c:winsystem32driversintelppm.sys

And the repair install can finally complete.

I used to be a strong supporter of AMD, but lately, I’ve really started to like the stability of Intel.

I have seen so many AMD systems with impossible to fix “peculiarities”, that I now prefer intel.

xp blue screen caused by vidstub.sys (bootskin)

Computer Aid Posted on by

I had done a system reinstall, and was updating various programs, and at some point, I restarted the PC, and was promptly greeted by a blue screen of death (complaining about vidstub.sys).

But safe mode works ok.

I quickly found out that the problem was caused by my recently updated version of bootskin (V1.05). Until recently, I had been using V1.00, and it never gave any problems.

Oh well, I delete c:windowssystem32driversvidstub.sys, and restart. I then uninstall bootskin 1.05 and install V1.00, and then everything works just fine.

brief XP blue screen, then reset

Computer Aid Posted on by

A customer said his computer would barely start windows, before a blue screen would flash-up briefly, and then the computer would restart again.

I suspect either a faulty power supply, or a bad windows driver.

The start screen shows 2 windows “boot” installation. The customer says he tried to reinstall windows a few months prior, but with no success.

The blue screen is the typical XP BSOD, but there is no time to read anything before the PC restarts.

I try safe mode, last known good configuration, but no luck.

I try the second XP installation. It takes about 10 minutes to do a file system check on NTFS, and then complains about no XP media in the CD drive.

At this point, I restart, and now the system starts normally. Great!

A quick RAM check (no problems), and my work is done!