Vista - Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit won't Boot

Alright, since I've no idea where else to place this I might as well make the thread here and see if I'm lucky.

A few days ago I was having constant blue screens in my new Gateway comp. Its a laptop, M Series, 15.4 inch screen. It brought along the Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit OS with SP1. Dual processors, 4GB of memory. After countless of blue screens, they seemed to come and go, I figured the comp was just being dumb. I unistalled all the things I had placed on it [which really wasn't much] so the laptop was running with all the things it brought from scratch only. Blue screens disappeared for a day or so, and then came again, though with less frequency.

I was using it today, left it for a few minutes, and when I returned it had gone to the usual stand by mode. Moved the cursor so it would restore, but after twenty minutes of a blank black screen I decided to turn it off and on again. And that's when it started to refuse to boot. Whenever it tries the bar appears for a minute or so, and afterwards it's replaced by the BSOD. To my disdain they always disappear quickly, so the most I can read on it is something about a driver malfunction, or whatever, and the error code 0x0000007E.

So yeah, if anyone has a clue as to why it won't boot, and how to fix it, I'd be grateful. Of course, I could just re-format it -- but I want to leave that option as a last case scenario.

Hi LMVR,

Well, if it is bcc 0x7E then read this.
Bug Check 0x7E: SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED


Try to take a picture with of the BSOD and post it.

Hi LMVR, at this point, the problem could be caused by lots of things, although Airbot's post is pointing to a direction. So, we are looking at corrupted OS, bad ram, bad HDD and/or bad physical connections. I would first remove 2 gb of ram and see if you can boot into safe mode. Run memtest on the rams two at a time in making sure if they are okey. To check HDD, run chkdsk. Hope this will take you some where. Post back.

Happy new year!

Bruce

Well, I managed to get into Safe Mode -- only for it to blue screen as well. =.=;;
My belief is that something was screwed with the comp before it arrived home -- probably in the trip to the store or from the factory. Gonna see if the guarantee fits it and I get a replacement. Every blue screen has a different code, so I'm guessing it's several multiple problems. *sighs* Me and my luck with electronics...

Well, I think that would be your best bet. Take it back and have them fix it.

FWIW - if you start having issues with something you just purchased, troubleshooting it is not the best thing to do - if it does not work OOB ***immediately* ring up the place of purchase and / or OEM and get it replaced.

So many people do not remember that shipping companies are not always gentle with our deliveries, and that there *are* mechanical devices in our computers, as well as delicate connections that can be dislodged (or even partially dislodged, which can actually be worse) with the right amount of force.

I cannot stress this enough - if it is new and it does not work, don't bother trying to fix it - replace it.

If you have had it several months and it starts going batty after that, that is a different story. But brand new, it is useless to try to troubleshoot it even if you're God's gift to hardware - they made it for you / sent it to you, so make them fix it.