Repeated BSOD

[bruce2]

Hi, alphatwolf, I would bet your bottom dollar it is bad SATA port, cable or contact. You will have to open up the case to shake, wiggle and tug on the connector at the HDD. Replace them with aftermarket ones as soon as possible. If still happens, try another ports. I had the same problem. Before I replaced the cables, I had to get in there to wiggle them twice a week. Lol. Hope this would take care of it.

Cheers.

 

[alphatwolf]

Dell support says it is a bad hard drive. They are sending me another one. Well, hopefully that's the end of this story.

 

[alphatwolf]

Hi, alphatwolf, I would bet your bottom dollar it is bad SATA port, cable or contact. You will have to open up the case to shake, wiggle and tug on the connector at the HDD. Replace them with aftermarket ones as soon as possible. If still happens, try another ports. I had the same problem. Before I replaced the cables, I had to get in there to wiggle them twice a week. Lol. Hope this would take care of it.

Cheers.

So will a new hard drive not solve the problem if the same connectors are in there?

Thanks

 

[Tepid]

That is correct. If it is a...

bad sata port = New Mobo or plugin to other port which could also be bad
Bad Cable = Replace Cable
Bad contact = reseat the plugs

Did dell have you run diags and did you get failures from the diags?

The dell phone techs are not all that bright. (or atleast they weren't in the past, not sure how much has or hasn't changed) wouldn't suprise me that they are just taking what you said and send you a drive for replacement and that fix the problem when that wasn't the problem.

I would still run Windows Memory Diag for about 4 hours and run Manufacturers HDD test.

The problems you are having are usually bad memory or bad hard drive.

Although you did say it happens if you pick it up, There could be a grounding issue,
What if you just push it from any coner or tilt it?

Or as stated before, cable not plugged in properly, something not seated properly.

 

[alphatwolf]

That is correct. If it is a...

bad sata port = New Mobo or plugin to other port which could also be bad
Bad Cable = Replace Cable
Bad contact = reseat the plugs

Did dell have you run diags and did you get failures from the diags?

The dell phone techs are not all that bright. (or atleast they weren't in the past, not sure how much has or hasn't changed) wouldn't suprise me that they are just taking what you said and send you a drive for replacement and that fix the problem when that wasn't the problem.

I would still run Windows Memory Diag for about 4 hours and run Manufacturers HDD test.

The problems you are having are usually bad memory or bad hard drive.

Although you did say it happens if you pick it up, There could be a grounding issue,
What if you just push it from any coner or tilt it?

Or as stated before, cable not plugged in properly, something not seated properly.

thanks. on the grounding issue, I live in an old house so I use a three prong to two prong adapter on my power cord. Do you think that is causing a problem?

 

[alphatwolf]

I was following up on bruce2's suggestion of a bad SATA connector and I tripped over a bunch of discussions of problems similar to mine with the XPS M1330.

Essentially, the problem seems to be that Dell's installation of Vista for M1330 is a house of cards, and if you try to rebuild it you end up with driver issues. Specifically, the SATA driver.

The problem (same as mine) is described in detail here. Repeated blue screens, hanging at the point it trys to load the crcdisk.sys driver, the machine will cold boot but not hot boot. All the same for me. Dell XPS M1330, the story doesn’t end « drewhill.net

I tried reinstalling the SATA driver, but that didn't solve the issue for me. I am going to wait for my new Dell drive, reinstall that next week and not try to change anything ever. I hope this thing comes with all the OS already installed. At this point I don't even mind all the crapola again, as long as the thing works.

Over and out.

 

[mansrm81]

I will highly doubt it will come with an OS already installed. Also good luck hope it will fix your problem.

 

[bruce2]

Hi alphatwolf, another thing comes to mind that the C2D cpu generates lots of heat. If their is a slightly malfunction of the fan, such as turning on or speed up not on time may cause blue screen due to overheat. Also, check if dust clogging up the heat sink when you are replacing the hard drive. You may want to have it blown out with can air while you at it.

 

[dmex]

I was following up on bruce2's suggestion of a bad SATA connector and I tripped over a bunch of discussions of problems similar to mine with the XPS M1330.

Essentially, the problem seems to be that Dell's installation of Vista for M1330 is a house of cards, and if you try to rebuild it you end up with driver issues. Specifically, the SATA driver.

The problem (same as mine) is described in detail here. Repeated blue screens, hanging at the point it trys to load the crcdisk.sys driver, the machine will cold boot but not hot boot. All the same for me. Dell XPS M1330, the story doesn’t end « drewhill.net

I tried reinstalling the SATA driver, but that didn't solve the issue for me. I am going to wait for my new Dell drive, reinstall that next week and not try to change anything ever. I hope this thing comes with all the OS already installed. At this point I don't even mind all the crapola again, as long as the thing works.

Over and out.

Hi Alphatwolf,


From your first Post here are the links to each BCCode you provided

BC Code: 24
Bug Check 0x24: NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM
(98% caused by Drivers)

STOP: 0x0000007E
Bug Check 0x7E: SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
(99.5% caused by slack non-microsoft driver developers who don't bother catching (try & Catch) exceptions in their code )

If you have the latest drivers for your Motherboard/graphics card/CPU/APG/PCIE... then it might be something hardware related like a dodgy cable

Steven

 

[alphatwolf]

I seem to have isolated the problem to a repeatable situation.

I reformatted, reinstalled Vista, added all updates, downloaded all Dell drivers.

Problem:
Will cold boot fine.
On warm boot, always get the following stop code: 0x0000007B (0x80403BA0, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
If I try to warm boot into safe mode after stop, the safe reboot always hangs at the crcdisk.sys.

If I get a new HDD and they make me reinstall the OS again, I'm not sure that this just won't happen again.

ARRRGH

 

[alphatwolf]

I just ran Windows memory diagnostics and the Western Digital full diagnostics scan and both came back with no errors.

Looking around, seems like the crcdsk issue is common and caused by Microsoft recommended update that was issued recently. Vista won't boot after windows update..help ! - Microsoft Windows Vista Community Forums - Vistaheads

can't find mention of which one it is.

I downloaded about 4 of them (broadcom netlink, richoh memory stick, creative tech/webcam, intel mobile chipset, richo picture card).

I could just remove all of them but when I go to the installed updates list the only ones that appear there are the Microsoft software related updates.

The hardware updates appear in the update history list though. Frustrating.

For some reason SP1 did not get installed as an update until just now. And now it seems like the hot boot is working.

In fact, everything seems to be fixed?

Not sure what it was, or how long this will work but it seems okay now.

The question will be, if it continues to work, do I still install the new hard drive from Dell when it arrives.

Then I'll have to reinstall everything all over again, and how do I know it will work?

I wonder if they ship refurbished drives as replacements, or if I am guaranteed to get a new one.

I am tempted to just go with this one, and if I have to spend $100 to get a new one down the road, so be it. It's not as if my time is not somewhat valuable.

I'll let you know how it works.

Thanks much everyone for your help and suggestions, I really appreciate it.

so in summary, the fix (if there was one) was just to finish reinstalling all the vista updates (including SP1) and reinstalling all the available drivers from Dell.

 

[mansrm81]

If everything still works after a while I would just keep the drive as a spare if you can.

 

[bruce2]

For some reason SP1 did not get installed as an update until just now. And now it seems like the hot boot is working.

In fact, everything seems to be fixed?

Not sure what it was, or how long this will work but it seems okay now.

The question will be, if it continues to work, do I still install the new hard drive from Dell when it arrives.

Then I'll have to reinstall everything all over again, and how do I know it will work?

I wonder if they ship refurbished drives as replacements, or if I am guaranteed to get a new one.

I am tempted to just go with this one, and if I have to spend $100 to get a new one down the road, so be it. It's not as if my time is not somewhat valuable.

I'll let you know how it works.

Thanks much everyone for your help and suggestions, I really appreciate it.

Glad to hear things are fixed. Congrats.
I wouldn't worry too much about if it is going to break down again. Until it does, you already know what to do to fix it after this incident plus you have a spear hard drive. After all, it is just a computer. Happy new year!

 

[alphatwolf]

"new" replacement drive arrived today from dell--refurbished. what do they care, they only need to keep me going for another 3 months. and i'm supposed to return the one I have or they start "collection" activities. i'll just send back the one they sent me. and that's the end of that.

 

[alphatwolf]

Okay, so it wasn't over. Got three blue screens yesterday with all different error codes so I capitulated and swapped the drive for the one I rec'd from Dell. It actually did come with a fully imaged drive, w/ Vista and all the original apps. Still, it has taken nearly a full day to get this thing running again (mostly just waiting). Seeing all the hotfixes, fixes, patches etc. that dell installs to get this thing running, I think it's likely impossible to get this thing running properly from the Vista backup disk and the Dell drivers available online. Not sure why they even send the back up disks then. Hopefully this one works. Already had some funky thing happen with the video screen as I was retweaking my IE, had to restart. Otherwise, so far so good but knock on wood.

 

[alphatwolf]

TURN OFF WINDOWS UPDATES....DELL machines can't handle any Vista updates at this time.

Boy, I wish they had told me this two months ago, would have saved a ton of time. Not sure if I just missed something or what. None of the four techs I had talked to before told me about this. The guy I talked to tonight said that they are working on issues with MS and hope to have it resolved in 2 to 3 months. Not sure if he is blowing smoke or what, but could be true. Seems astounding to me that I can't accept URGENT security updates from MS re some huge hole in Vista but I guess that's where I'm at. I've wasted too much time on this already.

End result, I had to reset to factory image settings, set up everything all over again. Too late finish tonight.

The guy was working me hard to extend my warranty but given that I was close to pitching this machine out my third story window I told him I would defer that decision.

Back to work.

 

[alphatwolf]

Clarifying previous post, they told me that you will absolutely have blue screens if you accept the updates, but guarantee that you won't if you don't.

 

[alphatwolf]

Continuing to rant so I don't have a heart attack....

It would be nice if on their web page entitled "HOW DO I RESOLVE BLUE SCREEN ERRORS?" they mentioned this little item about NOT ACCEPTING MS UPDATES!!!!

 

[Dzomlija]

Continuing to rant so I don't have a heart attack....

It would be nice if on their web page entitled "HOW DO I RESOLVE BLUE SCREEN ERRORS?" they mentioned this little item about NOT ACCEPTING MS UPDATES!!!!

Actually, the key would be to not accept DRIVER updates. Those are best left done manually by visiting the websites of the respective hardware manufacturers.

 

[alphatwolf]

Ironically, I just got a service alert from Dell reminding me to turn on Windows update and update all Vista files. Unbelieveable.