Blue Screen appears that says "A problem has been detected..." Windows XP

I have Windows XP and a blue screen continues to appear even after trying safe mode.
I have a Dell Dimension 3000 series desktop.

I wasn't downloading or installing anything. A random popup appeared yesterday that said something about something being updated and I needed to reboot. I didn't recognize the popup. I want to say it was AVG but I'm not sure. I never rebooted. Today my PC was slow so I rebooted. When I did, a blue screen appeared with alot of information and this error Driver_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

So I rebooted and hit F8 to go into safe mode. This worked and I accessed my PC. I went to system restore and began that process. When my pc powered down and came back up, the blue screen reappeared. It now says "A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps: disable or uninstall any anti-virus, disk defragmentation or backup utilities. Check your hard drive configuration, and check for any updated drivers. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

Technical Information:
*** STOP: 0X00000024 (0X00190203, 0x823E7C60, 0xC0000102, 0x00000000)

I can't move past this blue screen - safe mode or not...

Please advise.

Thank you,
Annie

Edited by Annie305, 06 March 2010 - 02:14 AM.

can you boot into safe mode??

if so i would put your windows os disk in and run chkdsk /r from within the recovery console

Edited by Funnel Web, 06 March 2010 - 09:13 AM.

a dell 3k should have a drive test in the diagnostic partition. You should try that to separate hardware from software. Both can cause this bluescreen.

F2 for setup f 12 for boot menu (f-11 or ctrl-f11 should trigger the recovery partition)

If the drive test good, boot with your oem xp cd and start the repair console (R at the first choice screen) and type chkdsk /r (space between chkdsk and /r)

Here is the list of boot options and bios screens for your model:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/syst...sm/syssetup.htm

Edited by Ken-in-West-Seattle, 06 March 2010 - 09:19 AM.

FWIW: 24 STOP errors can be either file system problems or hard drive problems.

The suggestion to run chkdsk /r is good because it can overcome some file system errors and will often point out those that it cannot.

If chkdsk /r has problems...then I would run the appropriate hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic on the hard drive itself.

http://www.aumha.org/a/stop.htm, see 24 in left column for summary info about your error.

Louis

Hi All,

I feel I'm out of options. I can not move beyond the blue screen. Thanks for the advice.

I tried f-8 and f-11 and both take me to the "safe mode" screen.

When I choose safe mode it still takes me to a blue screen.

My regular windows never boots up. So unless there is another F-key to press I'm not sure what else I can do..

????

keep trying f-12 to get the boot menu to get to the diagnostic partition or to boot from cd, or f-2 for the setup screen.

I have a dell on the bench now that took me about a dozen tries to get it to go to setup.

do you have a backup? You might want to do that now.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vis...ndows-computer/

Ken,

When I press f-12 a screen pops up that says Boot Device Menu with 7 choices.

1 Normal
2 Primary Master Drive
3 Hard-Disk Drive C:
4 IDE CD-ROM Device
5 System Setup
6 IDE Drive Diagnostics
7 Boot to Utility Partition

When I press F-2 it takes me to a set up menu.

What should I click on?

Thank you for the backup link. I am not near a pc with a working cd drive right now. But I will do that. Thanks

ide drive diagnostics first.

The utility partition choice also includes drive diagnostics as well as several other tests.

If the dell utility shows the drive as undamaged, then use your oem xp cd (or a retail or oem generic xp cd) and start setup, choose "r" at the first "choice" screen.

run chkdsk /r (with a space between the chkdsk and the /r) and it may repair the operating system to the point that it will boot.

It may not.

At this point you need to decide if your have a good enough backup to nuke and reload. If not, you can try a repair install from the second install screen if setup finds an existing windows install to repair.

If not, you can do a parallel install temporarily into a windows2 directory and maybe do a more comprehensive backup.


ms version of helpful instructions:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978788

And this one is a little more accessible...

http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

good luck

Edited by Ken-in-West-Seattle, 07 March 2010 - 10:21 AM.