Blue screen after system restore attempt

[Guest]

A system restore attempt failed. I tried to restore because PC had become
painfully slow. Restore was near complete, and was rebooting the system,
when the blue screen appeared and said (only slightly paraphrased) "If this
is your first time, restart. If this happens again, check for adequate disk
space. If a driver is ID'd in the stop message disable the driver or check
w/mfr for driver updates. Try changing video adapters.

Check with your hardware vendor for any BIOS updates. Diable BIOS memory
options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use safe mode to remove
or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select Advanced
Startup Options and select Safe Mode.

Technical Info:
STOP 0x0000008E (0xC000005, 0x005C0073, 0xEE20c7c4, 0x00000000)
Beginning dump of physical memory. Physical memory dump complete. Contact
your system administrator or technical support group for further assistance."

Well, since that is me....HELP!!!!

Multiple efforts to reboot in safe mode have all failed. The blue screen
reappears, with a message headlined Bad_System_Config_Info, followed by more
narrative. I can try that all again and post that narrative here. But
suffice it to say, there is no functionality at all other than to toggle some
of the settings in Safe Mode.

Any ideas??

 

[Maurice N ~ MVP]

Hi Mike,

0x0000008E is KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

See Aumha.org page on STOP MESSAGES
http://aumha.org/win5/kbestop.htm

See what it says there.

Also see Aumha.org's "Windows XP Shutdown & Restart Troubleshooting" page.
http://aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnxp.htm


Your last paragraph hints at your being able to get into Safe mode. Is that right?

Have you or someone else, added or changed hardware, or updated device drivers, or added new 3rd-party programs?
e.g. What has changed in the last xx days before this problem?

You may have to post back with the full text that shows around the STOP code.

 

[Guest]

Maurice-thanks for picking this up.

I can get to the safe mode screen, but the selection of any of the safe mode
options (including going to "the last known good point") does not suceed in
starting up XP, and another blue screen appears.

However, when I startup and forget to try to enter safe mode, the following
appears:

A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage
to your computer. BAD_SYSTEM-CONFIG-INFO. If this is the first time you've
seen this stop error screen, restart. If it appears again, (same as earlier
message about drivers and hardware, etc.)

Technical Info:
STOP 0x00000074 (0x00000003, 0x00000002, 0x8008800, 0xc000014c)

I can enter the safe mode and give you those error messages, as well.

However, to your question on hardware or device drivers or 3rd party
programs - not to my knowledge. This is a family computer, so the kids have
added games and such, but no hardware that I know of. I picked a date for
the system restore that was prior to the sluggish behavior. If there was
something added to the system after that point, and it was connected when the
system restore process tried to reboot, would that cause this failure (I
don't know what that might be though). It is hard to point to something in
particular, though the WinFix popups have become more frequent lately.

 

[Maurice N ~ MVP]

Mike,

What / WinFix popups / ???

The STOP error is different this time.

Please be explicitly clear. Can you select Safe Mode from the selective startup (F8) ? and can you login into it?
It's critically important to get in there, if you hope to try some corrections.

Also, may as well power down & disconnect any printers, scanners, or external devices ---- except for mouse & keyboard & monitor.

 

[Guest]

I can select the safe mode, but I cannot log onto it. All of the selections
offered by the safe mode screen, such as last known good configuration, just
lead to another blue screen that is headed "A problem has been detected and
Windows has shut down to prevent damage to your computer". Then the 0x74
code appears.

We will try to disconnect everything and try to start this up, and will let
you know.

 

[Guest]

To clarify the last message...I can select Safe Mode using F8, but once that
safe mode menu appears, none of the options there lead to anything but a blue
screen.

 

[Guest]

Well, with the power off, everything except the monitor, keyboard and mouse
was disconnected. The system was turned on, and the same result ensued when
using F8 to enter safe mode - the various options came up, and I selected
Safe Mode - it asked me which OS (the only one I have is XP Home Edition),
and when that was hit, the same blue screen appeared with the same message.

Bad_System_Config_Info
STOP: 0x74

This is the message that appears when any of the various F8 startup options
are selected. And yes, that is a different error message than with a regular
boot attempt. Don't know if those different errors provide any clues.

Is there any way around to blue screen??

 

[Guest]

Nobody had been manually editing the registry.

The boot attempts to the last known good configuration have also failed -
they yield the exact same result as a boot to safe mode.

What is the emergency repair disk? This is a Dell, who proudly tells you
that you don't need any backup OS disks, you can just use system restore.
Can anything be downloaded to another PC (like this one), and burned to a CD,
then used as the Emergency Repair Disk?

How would the registry get so damaged if the users here barely have the
capability to open the control panel?? Is this a virus?

Thanks----

 

[Guest]

Maurice-

I misspoke. When I mentioned toggling some of the safe mode items, I meant
to say toggling some of the items in F2 Setup. But none of them seemed
promising, and I likely would only send this machine deeper into misery. I
did not make any changes to F2-Setup as a result of going there hoping to
find something.

 

[Maurice N ~ MVP]

Mike,
You've made it clear that you cannot login to Safe mode.

Small but important point. You are slightly confusing (at times) the selective bootup choices (menu for Windows bootup options) and Safe mode Windows. Safe mode is a special mode of Windows.

One of your earlier notes said you have tried selecting
"Last Known Good Configuration" and that it did not work.

The STOP error you noted points to bad RAM memory.
See MS article
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326679

If you do not know how to safely remove or swap out memory modules, leave that to a professional repair shop. Ask friends if they know & recommend a local shop. Just do not jump to a big national chain store.

And before that, see if you can manage to download & run a basic program for checking the memory.
Run a ram memory tester like MEMTEST86.
See http://www.memtest86.com/

Do NOT do or attempt fixing anything until memory is all checked out as 100 % OK.

HTH

 

[Guest]

Thanks. Where does one even start with all of that? How can I reinstall
Windows if I don't have any disks? Is NTBackup a separate piece of software
that can be purchased?

I'm less concerned about system files, as all of that software is still is
on hand but will take a few days to restore, than in data files. Are all of
those data files lost now, also?

How in the world does this occur simply from trying a System Restore?
Should one unplug all peripherals before doing a system restore, as a matter
of practice?? I'd much rather have a sluggish PC than a dead one.

 

[David Candy]

Bug Check 0x74: BAD_SYSTEM_CONFIG_INFO
The BAD_SYSTEM_CONFIG_INFO bug check has a value of 0x00000074. This indicates that there is an error in the registry.

Parameters
The following parameters are displayed on the blue screen.

Parameter Description
1 Reserved
2 Reserved
3 Reserved
4 The NT status code (if available)


Cause
This error will occur if the SYSTEM hive is corrupt. However, this cause is unlikely, since the OS Loader or the NTLDR will check a hive for corruption when loading it.

This error can also occur if some critical registry keys and values are not present. This could be the result of someone manually editing the registry.

Resolving the Problem
Try booting by selecting "last known good configuration" in the boot options.

If this does not work, it means the registry damage is too extensive. You will then need to reinstall or use the Emergency Repair Disk.

 

[Guest]

Maurice-

Thanks for the clarification. Was this type of RAM failure going to happen
anyways, or did the System Restore operation simply tax the RAM enough to
cause it to crater? I always wonder what the tipping point is for such
things.

But how could I run anything like MEMTEST86 if I can't get past the blue
screen? This machine is essentially in a coma right now.

We have had the occasion the past few weeks to get a popup warning about a
"Blackworm virus" that appeared spurious, and we never acted on it.
Certainly never clicked on the popup that normally accompanied it. That was
the earlier 'WinFix' reference in this thread, which may not be the exact
name of the product the popup was urging us to purchase. Or that may be a
deadly link itself. Don't know anything about it, only that we never took
the bait. But might it have accompanied something that was wrapping itself
around the RAM??

Mike

 

[David Candy]

Well MS reccommends you use NTBackup and assumes you do this. It reinstalls windows then reinstates a backup of your files.

You'll have to reinstall windows and reinstate your files manually. You may have system (that's it's file name) files backed up by System Restore but you'll need to put the drive in aniother computer to get at them (unless you specially configured Recovery Console before being unable to boot).

 

[Guest]

?????
Are you talking to me or Maurice?

This all started during a system restore attempt, where Windows never again
booted up.

 

[David Candy]

There is no evidence that you have Ram corruption. You haven't provided the message and the message in the link is wrong. So nothing proved at all.

 

[Maurice N ~ MVP]

Mike,

Look at the instructions on the memtest website. If this pc has a diskette drive, make a diskette, as per the instructions. When done take to the problem pc, put the diskette in the diskette drive & restart it --- first try CTRL+ALT+DEL on the keyboard, or if not, press the restart button on the pc case. You likely have to power it off, wait say 15 seconds, then power up.

I am very concerned that your system was infected by malware. Anytime you see a popup message, and it urges or prompts you to "buy" a product --- it's a sign you've been infected.

If you have data files you want saved on this system (and from my perception that you are not familiar with recovery procedures & problem diagnosis), I urge you to take this system to a professional shop ----- just make sure they do not simply wipe the system & simply reload Windows.
You must check out RAM memory.

btw, nothing you ran would have affected ram memory.


All the best to you.

 

[David Candy]

If you have a sluggish PC something is wrong with it. Buy an XP disk and install on same hard disk in a different folder, use the working version to recover your data files. DO NOT USE ANYTHING DELL without checking with them what they did to their copies of XP that they sell (as it may delete your data files). Or take disk and put into another Windows NT (2000 or XP) computer and read your files there. Whichever you do type in Help Taking Ownership to see how to access your files (as in a new computer or new install it doesn't have permissions)

 

[David Candy]

I also believe you had sypwear/virus installed. I don't believe you should waste time testing memory as there is no evidence that there is a memory problem.