Helpful Dell Laptop BSOD Workaround (or BSOD in general?)

v877051

Power User
Something I found out tonight (just now!) through Dell Technical Support (here from my PC, as my notebook crashed & burned) was a cool way to run some great diagnostic tests was to do the following:

Even with seemingly unworkable problems like: DVD stuck in drive (non "tray" system, one like a car CD player, BCD\Boot\ error with 0xc000000f code,) you can:

Hit power (on) + Fn key and hold until you hear an unusual (non "Beep" beep. It's an irregular system driver noise.

Let all tests cycle and, at the end, answer "no" to the final test.

Resetting BIOS to factory defaults after the fact will allow you to, in most cases, assuming you're current on revisions (in my case, A11 with a Studio 1558 with Windows 7 x64 Home Premium + Vista x64 Ultimate,) disable all unnecessary hardware/options when it comes to this situation (WLAN, etc.)

SATA to IDE is important to set.

Configuring USB as a bootable device (will differ on almost every BIOS brand, Phoenix, AMI, Award, etc.,) is pertinent; download (if you've got the same error as me,) SourceForge's UNetbootin.

I've tried lots of utilities just to see what's out there.

That particular one is the simplest and fastest way to make a BOOTABLE ISO image out of a Windows DVD (with at least a 4+ GB flash drive!)

...good FYI to throw in there.

I hope this benefits someone out there in the BSOD land.

v877051
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell
    CPU
    Intel Core i7 820QM 1.73GHz "Clarksfield" (8 Threads)
    Motherboard
    Dell Inc. 0874P6 (U2E1)
    Memory
    4.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 661MHz (9-9-9-24)
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5400 Series
    Sound Card
    (SoundMAX) IDT High Definition Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15"+ Standard Dell Studio 1558 LCD monitor.
    Screen Resolution
    1024 x 768
    Hard Drives
    (x2) 1TB WD "Elements" External HDD + (x1) 1.5TB WD "Elements) External HDD; 500GB Solid State Storage on laptop.
    PSU
    N/A Notebook
    Case
    N/A
    Cooling
    External (NON-USB!) NZXT CRYO-S (X) Silver. ICE COLD.
    Keyboard
    Standard, non-10-key, no fancy backlighting.
    Mouse
    Good 'ol reliable USB 2.0 Microsoft 3-button mouse.
    Internet Speed
    16 Mbps w/ Aaris DOCSIS 3.0-compliant modem
    Other Info
    Gigabit LAN. Tight network security. (Hopes of getting a Linksys 4-Port Gigabit Security Router with VPN!) Disabled WiFi/Wireless hardware; don't believe in the concept. If I did, would use draft-N adapter.
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