Help! Urgent! ASAP! Why does this blue screen keep appearing when i start up my windows xp home edition?

Question

I have no idea what could have caused this, but the most likely thing is software or hardware corruption. Every time i start it up, the blue screen keeps appearing. I try to start the computer in safe mode, last know working configeration, but it fails too.

On the blue screen it says: "Disable or uninstall any anti-virus, disk defragmentation or backup utilities. Check your hard drive configuration and check for any updated drivers. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer"

I did install some anti-virus software last week, but i dont know what are "disk defragmentation or backup utilities." My mom replaced the RAM last month but i dont know about "hard drive configuration and check for any updated drivers." When it says "Run CHKDSK /F" how do you do that?

I really want to fix this problem. Its the main computer in my house. I dont know much about computers either. Please help.
Explain so i may understand.

Anything i do could make it worse, but i have an urge to fix things even if i dont understand. When in system start-up, and after pressing F8 a few times, could someone explain what each of those choices do?
Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Networking
Safe Mode with Command Prompt

Enable Boot Logging
Enable VGA Mode
Last Known Good Configuration
Directory Services Restore Mode(Windows domain controllers only)
Debugging Mode
Disable Automatic restart on system failure

I dont want to delete everything on this computer, or have to throw it away.

Anything i do could make it worse, but i have an urge to fix things even if i dont understand. When in system start-up, and after pressing F8 a few times, could someone explain what each of those choices do?
Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Networking
Safe Mode with Command Prompt

Enable Boot Logging
Enable VGA Mode
Last Known Good Configuration
Directory Services Restore Mode(Windows domain controllers only)
Debugging Mode
Disable Automatic restart on system failure

I dont want to delete everything on this computer, or have to throw it away, but this blue screen keeps poping up. I cant even go on an administrator account at all.

Sorry about the double, but i cant seem to get to my computers at all...

im currently on another computer...My mom says if i put in the windows xp cd, i would have to rework the network card, is that true? how do u get around it? is it difficult to rework it?

NOTE: SAFE MODE DOESNT SEEM TO WORK

Answer 1

rytclick on C in mycomputer and go to properties tools errorchecking ...

Answer 2

The description is unfortunately very vague but it is not your fault because this could signal a number of things that may be wrong with your computer. You hard drive is about to crash (as in physically corrupt). The Windows Installation maybe corrupted (for some oddball reason). The new RAM modules could be messed up. Or you just have a really really really bad virus. If the safemode fails, then this is really bad. Another thing could be that when you installed the RAM, you accidentally, pushed pulled something.

So in any of these cases, if you don't know what you are doing, there is not much you can do and we here can't just tell you what to do. If you don't want to loose the data on it, I suggest you immediately get somebody to take out the drive and make a backup. If you still want to mess with it yourself, then there one and only one tool which you can help you now and that is a CD called "Hiren's Boot Disk Utilities". If you can get it from a friend or something, you are lucky. Otherwise, you have to download it yourself (from this other computer obviously). And it is an image and then you have to burn this image onto a CD. Turn on the bad computer and instantly open up the tray and put in the CD and then close it. This CD is like the God of diagnostic and recovery tools. A very very very very handy thing to have. You must also keep it for future.

This CD has a few dozen different tools, which run off the CD (so even if your harddrive is messed up, it won't matter) and there are tools which scan the entire computer, all of the components (including, you CPU, Motherboard, BIOS, Harddrive, video card, RAM, CD/DVD drives, serial, parallel, USB, and firewire ports). You can also run individual detailed tests on a certain component like your hard drive if you suspect it.

There is one tool in particular called HDD Regenerator under the Hard Disk Tools menu which is written by this Russian guy. This tool will scan your entire hard drive sector by sector. Pick out all of the bad sectors AND recover them without losing any data at all. This is the one you should use.

Remember, this CD is for hardware problems only. If your windows installation is messed up, take the hard drive out, hook it up to another computer as a slave drive (or get somebody else to do it) and get the data as soon as possible. Then reformat the harddrive and reinstall windows. Remember this means that you need a full version windows CD also. None of the recovery crap you get in the box is going to work. So before you try to reinstall windows, make sure you have the full version CD.

You can get the CD image from here. It is one big file, a little more than 76MB.

http://www.kaldata.net/comments.php?catid=1&id=13141

Now this file is in .rar format so you need to decompress it with a program that reads .rar files. So get this free program to unrar it.

http://www.herve-thouzard.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=4#t5

After, you should have one big file with the extension .iso or something. Then you need something to burn this image onto a CD. So get a blank CD and use a program that you like from here to burn it.

http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/dvdcdburning.shtml

And now the CD should be ready.

If you have any further questions, feel free to ask me.

Answer 3

I don't know the answer to your question but I am definetely interested in finding out the answer. I just had the same problem with my computer. When I try to use the Windows XP Recovery Disk, my computer freezes up in the middle of the recovery. I am having my computer checked on Wednesday by a computer tech. If he solves my problem, I will let you know what you can do.

Answer 4

to run chkdsk go to start menu then run type in chkdsk then let it run. where you mentioned new ram was installed make sure its the right ram also there could be a bad stick of ram to find this out take out all ram and boot computer each time installing a stick of ram, defrag means just to put files in order
this would have nothing to do with the blue screen, the only other thing could be that the monitor cable is loose or the monitor itself is getting bad
good luck

Answer 5

Since you only see a blue screen on your system and cannot access the drive normally or through safemode as you stated in your posting......

If you have a WindowsXP CD, boot up to the Windows XP CD by making sure that your cdrom is set as the 1st boot device in your bios.

Once your booted to the CD Disk, chose "R" for the recovery console. At the recovery console, run chkdsk /f

Answer 6

the easiest thing to do is to run the hard disk check as recommended by the blue screen instructions. the hard part is to be able to boot up and do it. in general, you should be able to boot to safe mode (not "last know working config" since that didnt work for you, just plain safe mode without network, etc) to run chkdsk. just make sure you dont mess around with the parameters. stick to /f and you wont accidentally wipe your hard drive content.

as you didnt give the full BSOD esp the error code, you might be getting all sorts of wrong advice.

please see this link (for w2k but will work for xp too since they use the same generic error codes) for a more accurate cause for why XP is crashing.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/Windows2000Pro/reskit/part7/proch33.mspx?mfr=true

write down the full BSOD msg. esp after the STOP 0x....1E or whatever is seen on your screen. the "0x...1E" is the important bit which you can ref back to the link.

for example (from the microsoft link):
*** STOP: 0x0000001E (0xC0000005, 0xFDE38AF9, 0x00000001, 0x7E8B0EB4)
KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED ***

Answer 7

"... My mom replaced the RAM last month..." here is a very suspicious move that she unknowingly put in one that fails for whatever reason, be it a physical damage, mismatching (CPU-mobo-RAM all has to work together), or incompatible.

Here is what I would do: via this working machine search Yahoo! for a program called Memtest86 it is often bundled with Linux Live CDs as a separate utility OS, use it to run the entire memory testing.

Just as a side, since Live CDs are everything-ready-to-run-on-CD use it to run this screwed up machine, if it also fails at some point the issue is hardware for sure.

Answer 8

try f 8 first
then if needed system restore

computers what a world
i would try
1 - turn on monitor
2 - turn on computer
3 - constantly tap f8 - located at top of your key board
4 - when new screen comes up - use up and down arrows on your key board
to high light safe mode or last know good configuration etc
5 hit enter on key board
6 - windows should start or it will give options on how to start windows


SYSTEM RESTORE

first RIGHT click on my computer
choose properties
then on system restore
MAKE SURE (system restore is checked)
then close that window
then
1- click start at bottom of screen
2 - then click choose all programs
3 - then click pc help tools or could be in accessory's
4 - then click on system restore
5 - then click on restore to an earlier date or factory settings
6 - choose a date when it was working - or factory settings
7 - let it run it may take a while - follow directions - if any
8 - restart THEN CHECK STATUS
choose destructive recovery as last resort you may have to look hard to find this option
on mine i went to compact system recovery
that was under pc help tools and also in accessory's

BACK UP IMPORTANT THINGS TO CD NO MATTER WHAT OPTION(S) YOU CHOOSE
after restore you need to make sure you have all windows updates

AUTOMATIC UPDATES FIREWALL ETC

go to start (in the blue bar)
control panel
security center
set up options
i suggest automatic updates
to do a manual check go here
http://www.update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/default.aspx?ln=en-us

WITH CD ETC
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/XPClean.htm
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

Answer 9

According to the MSDN database it is an error denoting "access denied" id look at the C:\WINDOWS directory and make sure it didn't somehow get changed so that it is not able to be read or written to. This could be a result of a virus if so you can find a bootable live cd program that will allow you to boot into a mini-linux enviroment and remove the virus.

Answer 10

You'll have to boot from your Windows XP cd, and select Recovery Console and then run the chkdsk /f. More info here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058

Answer 11

If you don't know much about computers and this is the main computer in your house, I would suggest checking with your local Circuit City or Best Buy, or a local computer shop. If you start messing with chkdsk you could end up wiping out the entire hard drive if you aren't careful.