Have to diagnose a problem on a friends pc.......

[chuckles_the_scary_clown]

Situation is this: one 11 year old and one 8 year old, running XP.
Mum professes to be "hopeless" with computers.

Sooooo.........what I can gather over the phone is a BSOD was
encountered, I don't know what they were doing at the time, I don't
know their install history, that's all I know :-(

So they've restarted and encountered the "Windows did not shut down
correctly....." screen.

They've selected the option to "start Windows normally" whereupon I
gather Windows tries to load before the BSOD appears again.

They've tried the "start Windows normally" about six times with the
same result which tells me Windows isn't happy about starting
normally!

What sequence of steps should I take? If I boot to safe mode, I
assume my USB stick with various diagnostics on isn't any use?

Can I boot to "last known working configuration"?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

 

[Gerry]

You need to Start with a copy of the Stop Error Report!

Disable automatic restart on system failure. This should help by
allowing time to write down the STOP code properly. Right click on
the My Computer icon on the Desktop and select Properties, Advanced,
Start-Up and Recovery, System Failure and uncheck box before
Automatically Restart.

Do not re-enable automatic restart on system failure even after you have
solved the problem as it's better disabled. Check for variants of the
Stop Error message.

An alternative is to keep pressing the F8 key during Start-Up and select
option - Disable automatic restart on system failure.

If you are using a wireless keyboard and the F8 key does not work
substitute a wired keyboard and mouse for this exercise only.

--



Hope this helps.

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