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XP won't boot (blue screen) with IASTOR.SYS error

  • 01-12-2008 1:26pm
    #1
    ontheway
    Closed Accounts Posts: 48 ✭


    Hi, I have a 3 year old Dell XPS (gen 4), which we recently performed a clean OS re-installation upon and have been reaping the benefits of improved performance ever since (for about 1 month). However last week (all of a sudden) the machine while booting would get to the XP loading screen, and about half way in it would just give me a blue screen with an error relating to IASTOR.SYS.

    On further reading I see that IASTOR.SYS is a driver provided by Intel which manages the hard disk controller on my motherboard. After much more reading I found that if I went in to my BIOS and changed the setting from AHCI to ATA that should fix the problem. Now when I save those changes and reboot, the XP loading screen comes up and within 2seconds it gives me a different blue screen with very little information (no mention of IASTOR.SYS in this new error). So I switched the BIOS setting back to AHCI from ATA and now I am back to square one with about 15 seconds of XP loading before it hangs. Also safe mode won't start either. I tried safe mode with networking and it just froze about 10 seconds later, but without a blue screen.

    Any ideas, this is driving me crazy because I am really depending on this machine right now and I can't see how anything changed between when it worked and when it just wouldn't boot.


Comments

  • #2
    Tallon
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,565 ✭✭✭✭Tallon


    Reinstall again maybe?
    But first put in the Boot CD and try repair


  • #3
    ontheway
    Closed Accounts Posts: 48 ✭ontheway


    Cheers Tallon for the suggestion ;)

    I am a big fan fresh OS re-installations (especially on Windows PCs) so that would typically be my knee jerk reaction to such a problem. However I have read online that although it will leave you with a machine you can most likely boot in to (all working, etc), it is only a matter of time before the underlying problem resurfaces. This apparently isn't due to registry corruption, etc which could be fixed with a repair/re-install, but rather a lower level problem.

    Apparently this particular problem was extremely popular amongst Dell machines build around the 05 - 06 years, but nobody online (that I can find) have posted their solutions. There are many many people discussed the problem and the fact that it keeps coming back or they can't get rid of it.

    Has anyone seen this before, know how to fix it?


  • #4
    TechieEddy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 185 ✭✭TechieEddy


    Haven't came it across myself but from reading through some of the comments on this page it sounds like you need to install the latest driver when installing XP.
    Have a read through this
    Link


  • #5
    knuth
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 469 ✭✭knuth


    Try booting up with the original XP cd and using the recovery console. Do a chkdsk /p /r

    If this doesn't work, try obtaining a similiar iastor.sys file and copying it to the problem drive. You should be able to find the correct version by googling your motherboard.


  • #6
    ve
    Closed Accounts Posts: 448 ✭✭ve


    Cheers guys. I think the problem runs a little deeper than simply replacing the iastor.sys file. The link in TechieEddy's last post goes to a very long discussion between many people who shared this problem. The problem seems to stem from a buggy driver implementation for the storage controller provided by Intel and shipped by Dell. A driver update was eventually made available and can be downloaded from Dell.

    A dell technician told me that I need to do a clean OS re-installation. During the installation where it asks me to I want to install an alternative storage controller driver, I choose to do so and provide the updated driver on a mounted USB key. I have yet to perform this procedure, and hope to god that it doesn't become more complicated than it needs to.

    A lot of people (from link above) report success from simply changing settings in their BIOS. This apparenly only makes a difference if you are in fact using RAID, and in the case of me, I have a single physical disk in an XPS machine, so even though the capability is there on the motherboard, I am not using it and don't need it.

    I will report back here as soon as I get a chance to put my plan of action to work. In the mean time, if any of you disagree with any of the above, please let me know ;)

    Cheers for all your help


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  • #7
    unnameduser
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,081 ✭✭✭unnameduser


    lordlame wrote: »
    Try booting up with the original XP cd and using the recovery console. Do a chkdsk /p /r

    If this doesn't work, try obtaining a similiar iastor.sys file and copying it to the problem drive. You should be able to find the correct version by googling your motherboard.


    +1

    This is the first thing you should try. I suspect it is a problem with the hard disk. If chkdsk does not work you could try get your hands on a program called spinrite - it works a treat.


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