BSOD Win 98

[Jonzjob]

Can anyone help me please. I have to go to our neighbours tomorrow morning to have a look at their PC. It is running Windowz 98 and has just suffered the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).

I haven't had a look at it and don't know what the situation is yet, but has anyone any ideas as to the most likely causes of the BSOD? To make life more interesting it is a French Win 98, she doesn't speak English and her grandaughter who does will be at school! Good game, good game as the man said [:-))]

[Danny]

John, the bad news is that it could be one of thousands of reasons...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Screen_of_Death scroll down for windows 9x /ME

lots of useful help here http://aumha.org/win4/kberrmsg.htm

Hardware failure - likely culprit memory module failing or hard disk on the way out. Try removing one memory module at a time or replacing it if there is only one or changing the modules around in their slots.

If you can remove the hard disk and put it in another machine or in a drive caddie you might find out if it is ok or not or maybe recover any data if necessary

good luck

Danny

[Jonzjob]

Thank you for your quick reply Danny.

I have a caddy that I can drop the disk into if need be and I seem to remember the jar of worms that this problem is. I will have a look at the memory module/s and if there is only one then a reseat may help?

They have tried to do a reboot on the system and it was the same so I would assume that the situation mentioned in the wiki link where removing media can cause it is not the case?

I will take our laptop with me and then I should still have a link to the web and any support that I can find on there.

I didn't think that I would be using my old IBM engineers tool case as much as I have been after leaving the Big Blue! Believe me I would rather spend a week on an AS400 system problem than 5 mins on one on a PC!

Thanks again!

 

[Pierre ZFP]

Reseating the memory modules is a quick one to do when the case is open but before that, try booting in SAFE mode and going through the start up one item at a time. It might just be a dodgy driver file (related to hard disk failure).

Another gambit is to get into the BIOS on bootup (repeatedly press F8, but you knew that  ) and have a check around if all is as it should be.

[Jonzjob]

A quick update.

First it is an XP op programme machine!

No chance to boot up in any form, even safe doesn't boot. I tried to run a stand alone mem check programme and it said something alond the lines of no fat32 and would not run. I reseated the 512m mem card and both ends of the HDD data cable, but no difference. So I will be taking to a friend tomorrow who is a PC pro and he is going to have a look at it.

My stand alone mem test changed the keyboard from azerty to qwerty and it was quite exciting trying t remember where the different keys were. Still, it keeps some interest in life ?

That PC stats web site is very interesting Danny. I didn't know that these things had enough sense to start telling you it was poorly! But when I powered it on I don't remember hearing anything untoward and more than a single bleep would have stood out.

I will see if I can post the repair details when I have them!!!

[Danny]

[quote user="Jonzjob"]

That PC stats web site is very interesting Danny.

[/quote]

You're right but it wasn't me who posted it and now that post seems to have disappeared. Was it GoSub?

Was it this one http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1647

??

good luck anyway

Danny

[George]

hi John

Well one good thing about that last post is that there's no Fat32 - for XP it has to be NTFS.  Whilst XP can see Fat32 it needs to be NTFS for the operating system to run.  One other thought is perhaps the graphics card, seem to remember that was often an obscure issue for machines in our College.

 

 

 

[Jonzjob]

I didn't say it was you that posted it Danny [6]!! I just like to say thank you to people every now and again [8-)][8-)] ! (Thinks! I don't think that I got away with that explication[Www]?)

Thank you GoSub, you see there I go again. Daft as a brush I aM? In fact GoSubs post appeared in my e-mail but not on the thread?

George I hadn't realised that NSTC (OK make up yer own combination, it's bin a long day!) was the only one used for the XP OP. Ta for the info.

I hope that all will become crystal clear tomorrow? (Didn't someone once say that tomorrow never comes?).

Nurse, I need me pills again!!!!!!![:-))]

[AnOther]

[quote user="George"]Well one good thing about that last post is that there's no Fat32 - for XP it has to be NTFS.  Whilst XP can see Fat32 it needs to be NTFS for the operating system to run. [/quote]Sorry George but you're 100% wrong on this, XP runs perfectly under FAT32 !

[AnOther]

Jonzjob, make a note of what the BSOD says and if you can google it. Also it might help if you took a photo of it and posted it here.

Make sure they are honest with you whether they, or anyone else, has done anything or installed any new software or updates immediately before the problem started, particularly if any teenagers have been within 500m of it !

[Jonzjob]

Ernie, sorry but the box is sat in our laundry room and completely disconnected at the moment. I have arranged to take it to a PC Pro friend tomorrow morning and we will look at it again then. It's too late and I am too tired to canabeblise our system to try anything now, but thank you for the idea. Any other time and I would have jumped at it [:D][:D].

I am pretty sure that no new software has been added in the recient past even though the 'main' user is a teenage girl, a very sensible one!

[AnOther]

If you can get to the boot.ini file in the root of the sick PC's HD there are some useful switches you can use to diagnose and sometimes fix problems.

See HERE

/BASEVIDEO and /SOS I have found very useful in the past.

Sorry if this is too 'tecchy' [geek]

[George]

[quote user="ErnieY"][quote user="George"]Well one good thing about that last post is that there's no Fat32 - for XP it has to be NTFS.  Whilst XP can see Fat32 it needs to be NTFS for the operating system to run. [/quote]Sorry George but you're 100% wrong on this, XP runs perfectly under FAT32 !

[/quote]

OK Ernie - You're right, though I'm not sure I would accept "perfectly" some of the securities don't work, which is one of the reasons the NTFS system was created for and the partition size is restricted.  Large file sizes for imaging is also an issue.  However, as we don't know when it was installed with probable smaller disk sizes a choice could have been made to run it on Fat32 - sorry John, a long day for me too.
I believe that in newer installations, XP Home still allows the choice, XP Pro doesn't, but this might be due to the later service packs?

 

 

[AnOther]

NTFS does offer enhanced security and is also rather more robust than FAT32 but for the great majority of home users neither is of great importance.

Call me a luddite if you like but I've deliberately stuck with FAT32 because at the end of the day I like to be able to boot from a USB stick (or even a floppy [:-))]) and get instant unfettered access to all the files on the HD. For files <4gb I have a NAS drive which is NTFS by default.

And sorry to keep at you George but you're wrong again, XP Pro happily installs on FAT32 partitions up to and including SP2. I must admit I haven't tried an install from a Slipstreamed CD with

SP3, I'm quite happy to manually install it if and when necessary. Size can be an issue but it's a doddle to use FDISK to set the partition before installing.

[George]

hi Ernie.  I'm wrong again if we do it your way - you might think FDISK is a doddle, but I suggest many people don't and they also prefer to go with the manufacturers defaults.  I wouldn't call you a luddite either,  I understand where you're coming from on this. I too like the old days of dos and xtree etc.  I would love to be able to run the old operating systems and programs on a modern machine, it would run at lightening speed if it were indeed possible. 

I don't have any argument with you Ernie, you obviously are comfortable with all this, but I suggest the majority of people wouldn't be.  Most are not happy to change a hard drive on their own and probably wouldn't wish to have an alternative array of storage available.  They see the benefits of bigger hard drives and happy to accept the more stable environment however it comes and that's how the likes of Dell etc supply their machines these days. 

I might of course be wrong about this too.[;-)]