Blue Screen of Death :(

[Taylor_Hari]

So, a little history on my computer ... it is now ~4.5years old, and has had the RAM on it replaced about 3 years ago. It is nothing special, it is a 200Gb, 512Mb RAM, <2GHz Compaq desktop. At the end of August I purchased a new monitor and needed to update my video card, and then install a driver to view the widescreen format. Once doing this, the computer started acting up and I ran a recovery with the recovery disk and things were running fine since then. Last week I downloaded BitTorrent and downloaded a few albums and noticed my computer starting to run slow. I attributed this to having left it on for a few days, so I turned it off and the next day I received a blue screen with the kernel_stack_inpage_error. After unsuccessful attempts at a restore, I performed a system recovery. This did not change the outcome, and when I got into Windows none of the settings had changed (seeming like the recovery must not have worked). I had messages of a master boot record error, a corrupt or missing system32\hal.dll, and a black screen with a flashing cursor in the top left. I've tried to reinstall XP and it couldn't complete it due to misplacing my product key. I've tried running a dskchk /r and was told that I have one or more unrecoverable problems. I re-ran recovery and nothing has improved any outcomes, this is my latest error message:

kernel_data_inpage_error
0x0000007A (0xE121940c, 0xc000000E, 0xBF8F3A68, 0x1B34A860)
win32k.sys - address BF8F3A6B base at BF800000, datestamp 3b5ee2e6

Can anyone suggest a route to a fix?

"Last week I downloaded BitTorrent and downloaded a few albums and
noticed my computer starting to run slow."

When you play with fire you're eventually going to get burned.

Make sure that your anti-malware software is running, then download the
latest signatures and run a full scan.

If you don't have comprehensive anti-malware software, that's like
driving a car without seats belts or air bags. 'Comprehensive'
anti-malware software scans for all types of malicious software in the
background, on demand and on schedule

For now try scanning your system with /several/ of the better online
scanners, such as:
Kaspersky Antivirus (http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner)
Panda ActiveScan (http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan)

Download HijackThis from www.trendsecure.com. Run it, save a log, and
post the log at one of the many sites that support HJT, such as
spywarewarrior.com, bleepingcomputer.com, and http://aumha.net -- but
not here. Within a day you'll have step-by-step advice from an expert on
cleaning up any malware infestations.

Even the best detection and removal software can't fix every malware
infection. If none of the above remove the infection, you may want to
show the computer to a professional. You might need to erase your hard
drive and start over.

--
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

Taylor_Hari wrote:
> So, a little history on my computer ... it is now ~4.5years old, and has
> had the RAM on it replaced about 3 years ago. It is nothing special, it
> is a 200Gb, 512Mb RAM, <2GHz Compaq desktop. At the end of August I
> purchased a new monitor and needed to update my video card, and then
> install a driver to view the widescreen format. Once doing this, the
> computer started acting up and I ran a recovery with the recovery disk
> and things were running fine since then. Last week I downloaded
> BitTorrent and downloaded a few albums and noticed my computer starting
> to run slow. I attributed this to having left it on for a few days, so
> I turned it off and the next day I received a blue screen with the
> kernel_stack_inpage_error. After unsuccessful attempts at a restore, I
> performed a system recovery. This did not change the outcome, and when
> I got into Windows none of the settings had changed (seeming like the
> recovery must not have worked). I had messages of a master boot record
> error, a corrupt or missing system32\hal.dll, and a black screen with a
> flashing cursor in the top left. I've tried to reinstall XP and it
> couldn't complete it due to misplacing my product key. I've tried
> running a dskchk /r and was told that I have one or more unrecoverable
> problems. I re-ran recovery and nothing has improved any outcomes, this
> is my latest error message:
>
> kernel_data_inpage_error
> 0x0000007A (0xE121940c, 0xc000000E, 0xBF8F3A68, 0x1B34A860)
> win32k.sys - address BF8F3A6B base at BF800000, datestamp 3b5ee2e6
>
> Can anyone suggest a route to a fix?
>
>

[Taylor_Hari]

If I've already formatted my hard-drive, shouldn't this have covered that basis? I have an external hard-drive (which, consequently seems to be empty now following all this nonsense ... but that's another topic) so I wasn't worried about starting from scratch with the desktop. Cause basically, I won't be able to run any software to check for anything, anyways, since I've yet to be able to get into Windows at all lately (and the last time I had, I tried just running my antivirus and the kernel_stack_inpage_error showed up before that could finish). Basically, whenever I try and boot my computer without any XP setup/recovery discs in it, I get a black screen with a flashing cursor in the top left (not prompt), and it won't do anything except restart with ctl+alt+delete, and power off with a mere touch of the power button.

The second paraameter is a significant part of the Stop Error code:
0xC000000E, or STATUS_NO_SUCH_DEVICE: the drive went unavailable,
possibly a bad hard drive, disk array, and/or controller card.
Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/228753/en-us

You are welcome to look through the messages in this link where a number
have the same or similar problem. I only went so far but I saw no
solutions.
http://snipurl.com/7pnup [www_google_com]

I am not sure whether you are in a position to do this. If you cannot
you may be able to use the drive manufacturers utility to test the drive
otherwise look at the drive cabling etc.

Try HD Tune(freeware) as you can see the SMART
information relating to the drive etc.

Download and run it and see what it turns up.
http://www.hdtune.com/

Select the Info tabs and place the cursor on the drive under Drive
letter and then double click the two page icon ( copy to Clipboard )
and copy into a further message.

Select the Health tab and then double click the two page icon ( copy to
Clipboard ) and copy into a further message. Make sure you do a full
surface scan with HD Tune.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Taylor_Hari wrote:
> If I've already formatted my hard-drive, shouldn't this have covered
> that basis? I have an external hard-drive (which, consequently seems
> to be empty now following all this nonsense ... but that's another
> topic) so I wasn't worried about starting from scratch with the
> desktop. Cause basically, I won't be able to run any software to
> check for anything, anyways, since I've yet to be able to get into
> Windows at all lately (and the last time I had, I tried just running
> my antivirus and the kernel_stack_inpage_error showed up before that
> could finish). Basically, whenever I try and boot my computer without
> any XP setup/recovery discs in it, I get a black screen with a
> flashing cursor in the top left (not prompt), and it won't do
> anything except restart with ctl+alt+delete, and power off with a
> mere touch of the power button.

[Taylor_Hari]

I was able to get into windows last night, and I ran that kaspersky scan and it found one thing, but told me that it wasn't a virus threat. It appeared to be in Real Player, so I figure I'll just delete it anyways (especially since I never use real player). I was now wondering what steps should I follow to fully ensure my system seems to be legit again, as I ran chkdsk, fixmbr, and fixboot for both my C: and D:, followed by a full system recovery last night in order to get into Windows at all. Let me know what you think. Thanks in advance, and a big thanks for the help so far.