Windows update has fubarred computer?

quad_red

Hey all,

A tech phobe mate of mine has called me in a panic and I'm not sure what to tell him.

He turned on his computer this morning. Dell XPS, running XP with SP2. XP indicated it needed updates, he said fine and presumed they would install in the backround.

He comes back a few minutes later to be faced with the blue screen of death and the following message:

'A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer

If this is the first time you have seen this stop error screen, restart your computer.

If this screen appears again, follow these steps.

Check to be sure that you have adequate disk space.

If a driver is identified in the stop message, disable the driver or check with the manufacturer for driver updates.

Try changing video adaptors.

Check with your hardware for any BIOS updates.

Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing.

If you need to use Safe mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select advanced startup options and then select safe mode.

Technical information: ***stop:0000007E(0xc000001d,0xf78da8ea,0xf78ea7f4,0xf78ea4fo)
'

Now - the hard drive has a massive amount of space left. And he has tried all the various flavours of safe mode but none boots. ie. he selects them, a few lines of code come up as if it's starting, then the blue screen comes back again.

Any advice?

Cheers,
Quad

Adam

quad_red wrote: »

...

wow...it blue screens upon boot up IN SAFE MODE??

what about if he tries rolling back to the last known good configuration?

quad_red

Mirror wrote: »

wow...it blue screens upon boot up IN SAFE MODE??

what about if he tries rolling back to the last known good configuration?

Yup, it blue screens ever when he attempts a safe mode boot. Never seen that happen before myself

How could he roll back the configuration if he can't even start in safe mode?

Adam

quad_red wrote: »

Yup, it blue screens ever when he attempts a safe mode boot. Never seen that happen before myself

How could he roll back the configuration if he can't even start in safe mode?

ah well i was assuming he was getting as far as the boot up selection screen i.e. where you select to boot in safe mode. is this not the case? if so, can you narrow down exactly where it's happening?

quad_red

Mirror wrote: »

ah well i was assuming he was getting as far as the boot up selection screen i.e. where you select to boot in safe mode. is this not the case? if so, can you narrow down exactly where it's happening?

Cheers for the help Mirror.

Yeah, he can get as far as the boot screen where he can choose 'Safe Mode', 'Safe Mode with Networking' and 'Safe Mode with Command Prompt'. If he chooses any of them, they load initially (for 2 seconds) and then the blue screen appears.

Same thing happens with 'Last Known Good Configuration'. If he chooses that the Windows screen appears briefly and it looks like it's loading. And then the blue screen comes up.

'Enable boot logging' and 'Enable VGA mode' don't work either (resulting in blue screen). He even tried 'Directory Services Restore Mode' and 'Debugging Mode' with the same result - loads for a second or two then blue screen.

The PC hasn't been moved/dropped/interfered with. No new software or hardware has been added, bar the automatic windows update.

Any idea what's going on?

Mountjoy Mugger

I've come accross a similar situation at work - a Win 2k workstation is doing the same both in normal & safe mode.

However, there's a little more information in the BSOD, indicating an inaccessible boot device. Have your friend check if there's a bit more info on the screen.

Daemonic

Sounds like all boot options are having the same problem. Next thing I'd try would be booting from the Windows XP cd and choose the Repair Windows installation option.
Ideally if you have a 2.5" disk caddy you could pop the hard drive out and take a back up of it first though because you're getting into reformat territory if Safe mode and Last Know Good aren't working.

Adam

none what so ever to be completely honest...what about booting from a cd? if he has the copy of his operating system he could stick that in and boot from it, XP allows for system recovery from the installation cd if i recall correctly...

art

I had a Dell PC in work also pole-axed by Windows Update recently. Not sure which component of the update did the damage but I likewise could not boot and resorted to doing a repair from CD. This appeared to work for a day but on next boot it again failed and consequently re-did the repair. Third time attempting to boot, it no longer even posts. I've never seen anything as bad and have just parked the problem for the moment. But, moral of the story, if you do get your PC going through a repair, make a backup of important files anyway, as soon as you can, just in case...