After a few BSODs, Windows will not boot

First off, here's details/specs on my DELL laptop:

http://img691.imageshack.us/i/dsc02931v.jpg/
http://img841.imageshack.us/i/dsc02932m.jpg/
http://img163.imageshack.us/i/dsc02933k.jpg/

My computer has been working fine for a few years now. A few weeks ago, I started getting this BSOD message once every several days. I would reboot the computer and everything would still be working:

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/5201/dsc02928b.jpg

Today, I got the BSOD message. I was on the computer, left for a while, came back in and the message had popped up. Everytime the message popped up with during a random time so it wasn't a particular program I was using.

Since this last BSOD message, Windows will not start up for me at all. After the brief screen with the DELL logo, it goes to a dark screen and nothing happens.

I've tried starting Windows in safe mode but it stops at this screen:

http://img265.imageshack.us/i/dsc02929z.jpg/

I ran a diagnostics test and everything passed:

http://img225.imageshack.us/i/dsc02930x.jpg/

I wanted to try a Windows repair

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm

But after the terms page, instead of going to a "setup can try to repair it" screen, it takes to me a screen where I have to delete a partition or install a 2nd Windows OS.

So the question is what can I do next and what my options are? Is it possible to reinstall Windows without erasing my data? Any help here would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Hey Aaron,

When you're attempting to repair Windows, it should first ask you to install or repair (after it loads all of the setup files). Do you see the option for repair 'R' ?

If you end up retrying this and getting into the repair console the system will list the available operating systems to repair such as:

1. C:\Windows

In this case you would enter "1" then hit enter, and for the administrator password you would just press enter again, that is unless you've changed the administrator password.

At this point you should be at a command prompt "C:\"

I would suggest running a chkdsk first by typing CHKDSK /R and then letting this run (it could take 2-3 hours)



--

One quick other thing you could try is if you have multiple memory modules installed in your PC, take them all out and put them back in 1 at a time (alone). If the computer works with one, or doesn't even boot with one then you can narrow down your issue to most-likely memory related. I only recommend this because IRQ BSOD's often have to deal with memory, not drivers as they state.

Edited by fueL, 27 August 2010 - 11:51 PM.

Thanks for the help, the problem has been solved.

Using the recovery console, I ran a chkdsk. It said it found and fixed errors.

When I restarted the computer, I ended up getting this error message after the first DELL screen:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt

"WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/CONFIG/SYSTEM"

At this point, I went into the recovery console again. I entered

cd \windows\system32\config

ren system system.bad

copy \windows\repair\system

I restarted the computer and Windows started up again. I had all my old files, all I had to do at this point was installed the latest Service Pack and drivers. Everything is working fine now.

Thanks for posting that solution to that problem...I've added it to my "computer help" favorites .

Louis