KSoD (Black Screen of Death)

Just got a computer in that's experiencing the early variation of the KSOD problem on a Windows Vista Ultimate computer. This variation is the one that happens before the windows logo comes up, right after the loading screen. I don't know what caused it, as I just got the computer, and it's been sitting around for months already, but KSOD doesn't seem to want to fix.

So far, I've left it up all night to see if it would come around eventually, tried doing a repair from the Vista CD, tried doing /fixmbr and /fixboot under the repair console, tried deleting the event logs (renaming them rather, and somehow they were deleted), renaming the SoftwareDistribution folder (and renaming it back when that didn't work), booting into safe mode, doing the sticky keys work around, and probably a couple other things I'm not thinking about.

The only fix that I've found that I haven't tried yet is using some tool to destroy the windows boot loader information and recreate it, and I'm not sure if that'll work or not. I can do a clean install, since I have to clean the computer off, but I have a couple days to play around with it, and I'd like to see what's making this problem tick. It'd probably be worth it to do an image of the hard drive and boot it up in a virtual machine so that I can play with it after I turn the computer around and give it back.

I also haven't yet tried: asking it nicely, threatening it, casting a counter-curse on it, bribing it, giving it a technical tap, or defenestrating it.

Has anyone managed to fix a KSOD that comes up before the logo screen comes up? Have any good suggestions?

Edited by Errant.Reality.A, 23 November 2010 - 04:36 PM.

hello,

I had one a couple weeks ago that was as simple as re seating the RAM...worth a shot!

good luck

I'll definitely try it.