Blue Screen of Death

ucd_guy

So, months ago, I spilled a glass of milk on my (Dell Inspiron) laptop keyboard and ever since the "Down" arrow key doesn't work. No big deal, right?....

A couple of weeks ago, when I came back from being away for the summer for four months I turned on my laptop only to discover the the battery was fooked. It would work while plugged in, but if the power ever went the laptop would just die immediately, i.e. the battery wouldn't hold any charge whatsoever. No bid deal, right? I'll just use it while plugged in for a while....

Then last night, the power went in my house due to the wind. Just for a second, but the laptop immediately went off. When I turned it on this morning, Windows soon started to load normally but I soon got the dreaded blue screen. The Windows loading-splash screen starts as normally then about half way through it seizes. She won't load in safe mode, safe mode with Networking, Last Known Good Configuration, anything. Tried going into the BIOS setup menu by pressing F12 but can't select any of the options because I can't press down!

Anyone any ideas?

trout

here's an idea .... stop spilling milk on yer keyboard!

i wonder if the milk has slowly caused the sequence of events ... suppose it's possible ... the question is how can it be rectified ?

i would suggest disassembly and cleaning any milk residue from affected surfaces, but this is not trivial ... unless you have good hardware/lappy/leccy skills

have you tried plugging in an external keyboard, or failing that connect the laptop to a docking station ? that would overide keyboard and battery ... unless you've managed to get milk on the docking connector (unlikely)

have you any important data on the laptop ? maybe that should be first priority ... best of luck!

tippguy2

if you are getting this blue screen error ---> STOP 0x000000ED (0xaaaaaaaa,0xbbbbbbbb,0xcccccccc,0xdddddddd) UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

start your computer with the Windows CD-ROM (set 1st boot to cd drive)

When the Welcome to Setup screen appears, press R to select the repair option.

If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the Windows installation that you want to access from the Recovery Console.

Type the administrator password when you are prompted to do so.
If no administrator password exists, press ENTER.


At the command prompt, on the drive where Windows is installed, type chkdsk /r, and then press ENTER.

. At the command prompt, type exit, and then press ENTER to restart your computer

Ruu_Old

What is the STOP message you are receiving?

Sparky

I got this in a PC before. It later turned out that the HDD was fooked.

generalmiaow

You should dismantle it according to the dell service manual and pour isopropyl alcohol liberally all over any gaps. Make sure to open a window and dry it afterwards. If the milk got to the down arrow it got under the membrane and might be pretty far in.

Capt'n Midnight

generalmiaow wrote:

You should dismantle it according to the dell service manual and pour isopropyl alcohol liberally all over any gaps. Make sure to open a window and dry it afterwards. If the milk got to the down arrow it got under the membrane and might be pretty far in.

only if ALL else fails and you don't mind ending up with a paperweight

depending on the vintage F12 on startup should let you into a diags to test the laptop, otherwise try a boot CD

power cut could have caused enought software corruption to cause the stop error, try pressing F8 and choosing last known good or safe mode and try a system restore ( all depends on which version of windows you have - hint )

Try an external keyboard too

Anti

Im guessing the laptop wasnt plugged into a surge protector was it ?

To me it sounds like your hdd is pretty f.ucked. Try a repair install first so you can retrieve your data.

ucd_guy

Ok, an update and a question!

Gonna try the external keyboard thing. I've got some really good pictures and stuff that have a lot of personal value, so I'm gonna try and reinstall windows. Thing is, I can't find my Windows CD. (Comedy of errors!). Could I hypothetically use a mate's OS CD to reinstall Windows? Would this preserve the pictures (They're in my documents folder!) And if my HDD is actually frigged, would I be better off repairing it or just buying a new laptop (the thing is two years old this Feb.)

challengemaster

no, dont reinstall windows! repair it! if you reinstall you'll end up formatting the hdd and losing all the data.

sdanseo

ucd_guy wrote:

Tried going into the BIOS setup menu by pressing F12 but can't select any of the options because I can't press down!

Anyone any ideas?

trout wrote:

here's an idea .... stop spilling milk on yer keyboard!

What he said

It's much more likely that the milk didn't cause this, that the power surged or something and this fried (fully or recoverably, who knows) the hard drive. It sounds very unlikely that the thing could be fine for too months and coincidentally break during a power cut.

DO NOT REINSTALL WINDOWS OR YOU WILL LOOSE ALL YOUR DATA.

Repair it as said above and explained further above, and if you still have no luck and the stuff is of a large senimental value, have someone in a PC repair shop look at it. You may be able to salvage the HDD and rescue data from it professionally or through another laptop, (which is difficult with lappys) - bbut not a hope if you reformat it ( Windows can't be installed again safely without reformatting, you can't install windows twice on same partition, and you can't create a new HDD partition without reformatting)

System restore may work but for this you would have to boot in safe mode at least...

If saving the data is youre ultimate goal, take the HDD out and try replacing it (expensive and will void warranty, but relatively easy to do).