The Blue Screen of Death
The blue screen of death (BSOD) is likely the most famous component of the Windows operating system. First seen in Windows 3.1, it gained notoriety after appearing during Bill Gate’s unveiling of Windows 98. Anyone who ever used Windows 95, 98 or Me for any length of time has probably seen a BSOD, and though they are less common with Windows 2000, XP and Vista, they still occasionally appear. Windows XP and Vista will reboot if a bluescreen condition happens during the boot process and then display the “Windows has recovered from a serious error” message.
Causes of BSODs
In Windows 2000, XP and Vista, BSODs can be caused for a number of reasons. Below, I’ve listed some of the stop codes and possible causes, summarized from The Lazy Admin website:
- STOP_0×0000000A IRQL_NOT_LESS_EQUAL:
Buggy device drivers, virus scanners and backup tools. - STOP 0×0000001E KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED:
Programs, usually trojans and spyware (although legitimate remote control programs may cause the same problems) attempting to subvert the Windows logon process. - STOP 0×0000007B INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE:
Hard drive failure, bad boot.ini configuration, or incompatible hard disk controller drivers. This can happen after swapping out a motherboard with another one having different disk controllers. - STOP 0×00000050 PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA:
Windows tries to access memory that is not available and can’t be written to the page file, typically caused by bad memory or printer drivers. - STOP 0×0000007F UNEXPECTED_KERNAL_MODE_TRAP:
Bad memory chips or CPU overclocking. - STOP 0×00000024 NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM:
Failing hard disk or buggy third-party disk defragmenters. - STOP 0×0000002E DATA_BUS_ERROR:
Hardware incompatibility, misconfigured BIOS settings or bad memory.
Troubleshooting Steps
The first thing to do is disable automatic restart after BSODs, before trouble begins. Right-click My Computer and choose Properties. In the Advanced tab, in the Startup and Recovery section, click Settings and then uncheck Automatically restart. Click OK twice.
If you do get a stop error there are a lot of things you can do, but the first steps to take are typically in the error message itself. If you need to, write down the error, especially the STOP code (like the ones listed above), and do a Google search on it if you have some other means of internet access.
Microsoft has provided a document on BSOD errors, that while highly technical, offers good advice based on the STOP code received. Skip ahead to page 22 and then find the error matching the one you got and try the troubleshooting steps there.
Most of the time, BSODs are hardware or driver related so your first priority after getting your computer up and running is backing up your data, if you aren’t doing that already.