System Halted

[Thomas M.]

XP SP2

Last night I installed a new USB 2 PCI card into a system that has been
working great for months. When I logged on to the computer for the first
time after installing the card, it froze about 15 seconds after showing me
the desktop, and then about 30 seconds later it blue screened. The blue
screen message is:

*** Hardware malfunction

Call your hardware vendor for support

*** The system has halted ***


Here's what I've tried in an effort to resolve this problem.

1) Powered off the machine, removed the USB 2 PCI card, and rebooted.
2) Tried booting with the Last Known Good Configuration option.
3) Booted into Safe Mode and moved all my data off on to a secondary drive,
then installed the USB 2 PCI card drivers from CD (just in case there was a
glitch the first time the drivers were installed), and then re-inserted the
card.
4) Checked online for updated drivers (none found).
5) Logged on using Debug mode.

Here are a few things that I forgot to try last night (it was late and I was
fried), but that I will look at today.

1) Remove the drivers completely before installing them from the CD (item 3
above).
2) Remove the card from the Device Manager before trying to re-install.
3) Log on using Safe mode and check the event logs.
4) Check for hardware conflicts or problems with other devices (the problem
happened right after I installed the USB 2 card, so the problem is probably
related to that, but it is nonetheless *possible* that the problem is
actually with another device and that the timing was coincidental).

So I have two questions. First, what does logging on with Debug mode get
me? I've never tried that before, and it didn't appear to be any different
than just doing a normal Windows logon. I'm kind of assuming that it
creates a log file or something that I can go look at, but I'm not sure
where to find that information. Second, does anyone have any other
suggestions for resolving this problem before I go through the work of
re-imaging the system?

--Tom

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

XP SP2

Last night I installed a new USB 2 PCI card into a system that has been
working great for months. When I logged on to the computer for the first
time after installing the card, it froze about 15 seconds after showing me
the desktop, and then about 30 seconds later it blue screened. The blue
screen message is:

*** Hardware malfunction

Call your hardware vendor for support

*** The system has halted ***


Here's what I've tried in an effort to resolve this problem.

1) Powered off the machine, removed the USB 2 PCI card, and rebooted.
2) Tried booting with the Last Known Good Configuration option.
3) Booted into Safe Mode and moved all my data off on to a secondary
drive, then installed the USB 2 PCI card drivers from CD (just in case
there was a glitch the first time the drivers were installed), and then
re-inserted the card.
4) Checked online for updated drivers (none found).
5) Logged on using Debug mode.

Here are a few things that I forgot to try last night (it was late and I
was fried), but that I will look at today.

1) Remove the drivers completely before installing them from the CD (item
3 above).
2) Remove the card from the Device Manager before trying to re-install.
3) Log on using Safe mode and check the event logs.
4) Check for hardware conflicts or problems with other devices (the
problem happened right after I installed the USB 2 card, so the problem is
probably related to that, but it is nonetheless *possible* that the
problem is actually with another device and that the timing was
coincidental).

So I have two questions. First, what does logging on with Debug mode get
me? I've never tried that before, and it didn't appear to be any
different than just doing a normal Windows logon. I'm kind of assuming
that it creates a log file or something that I can go look at, but I'm not
sure where to find that information. Second, does anyone have any other
suggestions for resolving this problem before I go through the work of
re-imaging the system?

--Tom

Log in in Safe Mode, then use System Restore.

 

[Thomas M.]

So I have two questions. First, what does logging on with Debug mode get

Log in in Safe Mode, then use System Restore.

Thanks for the suggestion. I had not thought about using a system restore
point. I gave that try, figuring that it would work, but to my surprise the
machine continued to blue screen about 45 seconds after hitting the desktop
after login. I even went to a restore point that was a full month old--well
before the time that I started having the problem--and that did not fix the
issue. I finally re-imaged the machine and that worked.

Given that the problem persisted from one restore point to another (I tried
3--all made prior to the date that I started having the problem), I would
guess that something that does not get backed up when a restore point is
created must have gotten scrambled.

Fortunately, I have a "core software" image which includes XP SP2 and all my
most frequently used software, including all Office products. Each time I
restore that image I take the opportunity to update security patches,
drivers, etc. So recovering my system with a re-image is a relatively
trivial process. Nonetheless, I like to do testing in a situation like
that, just to see if I can figure out specifically what went wrong.

--Tom

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Thanks for the suggestion. I had not thought about using a system restore
point. I gave that try, figuring that it would work, but to my surprise
the machine continued to blue screen about 45 seconds after hitting the
desktop after login. I even went to a restore point that was a full month
old--well before the time that I started having the problem--and that did
not fix the issue. I finally re-imaged the machine and that worked.

Given that the problem persisted from one restore point to another (I
tried 3--all made prior to the date that I started having the problem), I
would guess that something that does not get backed up when a restore
point is created must have gotten scrambled.

Fortunately, I have a "core software" image which includes XP SP2 and all
my most frequently used software, including all Office products. Each
time I restore that image I take the opportunity to update security
patches, drivers, etc. So recovering my system with a re-image is a
relatively trivial process. Nonetheless, I like to do testing in a
situation like that, just to see if I can figure out specifically what
went wrong.

--Tom

Since System Restore failed to deliver, I suspect that a glitch
caused some corruption in some file. System Restore does not
back up everything - AFAIK it picks up only the changes that
occur from one point to the next. If the corrupted file looked
unchanged to System Restore then it would not have been
tagged for a backup.

It's good to see that you maintain good image backups of your
system partition. I do it too and it has saved my installations on
several occasions.

 

[Thomas M.]

Since System Restore failed to deliver, I suspect that a glitch
caused some corruption in some file. System Restore does not
back up everything - AFAIK it picks up only the changes that
occur from one point to the next. If the corrupted file looked
unchanged to System Restore then it would not have been
tagged for a backup.

It's good to see that you maintain good image backups of your
system partition. I do it too and it has saved my installations on
several occasions.

I agree. It must have been a file that System Restore doesn't backup
regularly. I did a little research on what System Restore does backup, and
suffice it to say that there's a lot that it misses (by design). That helps
to explain in general terms why doing a system restore did not work, and I
really don't need to know any more precisely than that. I'm sure that it
would probably be possible to chase down the exact file that got hosed, but
I didn't have the time or the energy to pursue it that far.

I also agree about the image backups. I work in second-tier tech support
(which is one reason I took more time than I need to in researching this--I
was just curious and wanted to increase my knowledge), and I have learned
the hard way the value of good backup images. Now I'm practically obsessive
about having solid backup images, precisely for situations like the one I
encountered.

FWIW, I got in trouble on this USB 2 card installation because I actually
read and followed the manufacturer's instructions, which said to install the
card first because Windows had native drivers for the device that are more
recent than the drivers that are on the included CD. Unfortunately, that
approach caused my machine to blue screen. That'll teach me to RTFM! ;-)
Once I re-imaged my machine, I installed the *drivers* first (like I would
usually do), and then installed the card, and now it's working like a champ.

--Tom

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I agree. It must have been a file that System Restore doesn't backup
regularly. I did a little research on what System Restore does backup,
and suffice it to say that there's a lot that it misses (by design). That
helps to explain in general terms why doing a system restore did not work,
and I really don't need to know any more precisely than that. I'm sure
that it would probably be possible to chase down the exact file that got
hosed, but I didn't have the time or the energy to pursue it that far.

I also agree about the image backups. I work in second-tier tech support
(which is one reason I took more time than I need to in researching
this--I was just curious and wanted to increase my knowledge), and I have
learned the hard way the value of good backup images. Now I'm practically
obsessive about having solid backup images, precisely for situations like
the one I encountered.

FWIW, I got in trouble on this USB 2 card installation because I actually
read and followed the manufacturer's instructions, which said to install
the card first because Windows had native drivers for the device that are
more recent than the drivers that are on the included CD. Unfortunately,
that approach caused my machine to blue screen. That'll teach me to RTFM!
;-) Once I re-imaged my machine, I installed the *drivers* first (like I
would usually do), and then installed the card, and now it's working like
a champ.

--Tom

Thanks for the feedback.