My pc is more stuffed...

SoulBlade · Post by **SoulBlade** » 14 Apr 2005, 17:25

Ok. The other day, Tuesday, I switched on my pc. To my dismay, the screen showed that their's a file missing or corrupt (windows\system32\config\system). I assumed it was the system files. It also said to run the Recovery Console.

I tried to copy the file in question from my friends pc to memory stick but it was locked.
I tried the Recovery Console but don't know how to use it. (I know DOS though.) I was fed up with my XP installation anyway so I decided to reinstall.

When booting from the cd, the files load and you are presented with some options. That screen never appears, only the following...

"A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to our computer.

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps.

Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed drivers or hard drive controllers altogether. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configed and terminated.
Run CHKDSK /F to check to check for hard disk corruption and then restart your computer.

Technical information
*** Stop : 0x0000007B (0x0F7C5C63C, 0x0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)"

That's about it. I did everything above but to now avail. I sticked it into my friends pc and the XP installation ran without a hitch. When I put it back in, same error.
Win 98 installed fine on my c partition, but everything(desktop, explorer, etc.) is painfully slow. XP is on my D partition.

From the POST i assume i got no defect/blown mobo, ram, etc

Thanks in advance.
SoulBlade

roland · Post by **roland** » 14 Apr 2005, 17:53

Maybe this can help:

Quoted from MSDN...

"
Avoiding Stop Error 7B During Initial Boot of the Runtime

Submitted by: Andy Allred, Microsoft

If your runtime bug checks, or blue screens the first time you boot into it and it errors with bug check code 7B, this indicates that you left out a critical boot device. This boot device could include one of the following components: a disk drive, an Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) controller, a primary IDE channel, a secondary IDE channel, a PCI bus, or another boot device.

The two most common causes:

* You have built the hardware configuration yourself without using the tools to query the target machine for its devices.
* You used ta.exe in the bios on the target machine but it returned information that could not be found in the database. This means you could have missed a critical device in the configuration process. If you know the specific component or one that is compatible, such as a generic driver that is in the database, try adding one of these components into your configuration and build the runtime again.

Try one of the following solutions:

* Use tap.exe instead of ta.exe. Using tap can be virtually foolproof and it will determine all devices necessary. You can only run tap from Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Tap will query the registry to identify the correct devices that Windows Setup determined would be best for that machine. Another downside to tap is that it will pull in any devices that it used to install in that machine but were subsequently removed, as well as pull in some software enumerated devices into your configuration that you may not want or need. If this happens, delete the unnecessary component from your configuration.
* The second solution would be to examine device manager in a safe build successfully installed on the target machine. For instance, if you already have Windows XP or Windows 2000 installed, open device manager and identify the critical device listed in Device Manager that is missing from your configuration in Target Designer. Then locate the device with the same display name in Target Designer and add it to your configuration."

SoulBlade · Post by **SoulBlade** » 14 Apr 2005, 18:11

Hi Roland

To the man on the street, what does it mean? Cause you lost me...

SoulBlade

Soap · Post by **Soap** » 14 Apr 2005, 19:48

There's a lot of possibilities here. As I see you are using a quite old Athlon XP, have you checked if the fan is clogged up? Blue screens are a common consequnce of overheating, and Athlons do have the tendenacy to screw up at below 60°C already. There may be various other issues, aswell, you may have tried to tweak the bios and screwed with the FSB resulting in an unstable overclock, or you might have changed the timings which do cause this aswell. There's a possibility of a virus destroying the boot loader, but as you say the cd also crashes, this isn't even a near option. Best option would be to open case, check if heatsink has perfect contact to CPU die, check if fan is clogged, check CPU temperature in BIOS, if you have more than 1 RAM module, take all but one out, test every module by itself, see if it helps. If that won't help, try reverting back to BIOS defaults, maybe you did change some settings? And after all, check your CD-ROM drive, I had numerous occasions where a broken CD-ROM just caused blue-screens as it couldn't read my scratched CDs (oops!). This definitely sounds like a hardware issue, as it causes problems when booting from HDD or CD.

JEdiWaNNaBE · Post by **JEdiWaNNaBE** » 14 Apr 2005, 20:13

I've had a similar problem on a client pc before, although it was compleatly random then.

I would suggest that you take your ram out and clean the contacts CAREFULY with some isopryl alchol, and then clean the slot out with some compressed air.

If that doesn't work then try what SOAP said. If that still doesn't work then i would suggest getting hold of a friend with a similar pc to you (ie oldish AMD Athlon XP) and testing your components one at a time in his pc, starting with the easist to remove (RAM, or HDD) last thing to try would be to use his motherboard but all of your components. Don't forget the PSU as well.

Hope this helps.

Rayne · Post by **Rayne** » 14 Apr 2005, 20:45

I also had this exact same problem before.

The problem was my RAM running at diffirent latencies in dual channel mode. I never even knew it (Same brand and all).

Soap · Post by **Soap** » 14 Apr 2005, 20:57

Yes, different latencies on dual channel is stability's killer. Your running dual-channel solely to achieve a 128-bit memory bus width, and having different latencies on the modules will just bomb out due to unequal transfer cycles. This could be a potential issue indeed, as the original nForce1 already sports Dual-channel support. Quickest way would just be to reload bios defaults and if applicable, revert back to SPD-programmed timings.

SoulBlade · Post by **SoulBlade** » 16 Apr 2005, 12:34

Well, that got quite a response.

In short, I got my system working...
Roland's qoute got me thinking. It mentioned IDE devices and critical boot devices. So if my HHD, ram, mobo, PSU and GFX card is working, why not try swopping IDE cables. Putting my HDD with the CD-ROM's IDE cable and CD-ROM on the HDD's

Well, well. Problem solved. I finally got XP installed and swopped it again. XP booted without a hiccup. I still don't know what really happened, but who cares? Now I can continue with Doom III & HL2

SoulBlade