BSOD Prevents PC from completly booting up

[JaNoob]

Hi, I'm new to the forum. Yesterday, my PC broke down at the worse possible time (I had a research paper that needed to be turned in today ). At first, my PC was completely fine until I got a BSOD. After this BSOD, however, I was now unable to get pass the "genuine windows check" (the step after entering the password for starting windows). After restarting my PC at least 10 times, I recieve the same error.

I tried repairing the my windows with the Win XP cd. After finishing the repairing, I am now able to pass the "genuine windows check," but as my PC nearly finishes booting all the way, it will crash. I recieve the BSOD with:

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

Technical information:
*** STOP: 0x00000050 (0xFFFFFFc8, 0x00000000, 0x80552211, 0x00000000)

When entered in Safe mode, it will not crash immediately after booting. But it will crash when I attempt to open something like "My Computer." When it crashes, I recieve the same BSOD message found above.

Hopefully this is only an OS problem and not hardware, but I can't help but feel that it is my HDD that is dying on me. For example, when trying to manually run CHKDSK in My Computers, I get a "ULIB.DLL (UNTFS.DLL)"error. I recently bought a new HDD incase this ever happened. There are a lot of video files, etc, that I have on my old HDD that I want to move onto the new drive. I did not install the new HDD yet, though I physically installed it into my PC (fully mounted into the case with SATA cables ready to be plugged in).

If the HDD is indeed the problem, how should I fix this dilemma? remove the previous HDD and reinstall Win XP on the new HDD?

I greatly appreciate the help, thanks.
Ben

PS: If this topic needs to be moved onto another forum, I would appreciate it if someone moved this thread for me.

[l337_GuY]

Install XP fresh onto the new HDD. Once that is done, Plug in your old HDD (the on your currently using) and you should be able to copy over any data you want to save. Then just use it as a storage drive or for backup..

That BSOD error is usually just caused by Windows XP problems, But can be caused by faulty RAM. Easily fixed with a reformat though.

If problem persists, Then it's likely RAM is the culprit - Which a reformat cannot fix.

[JaNoob]

So I should install a fresh XP on the new HDD. Turn off PC, then replug in old HDD and copy files over onto new HDD. How would I reformat my old HDD after moving the my files onto the new HDD? My Computers ->Old HDD, right click, format?

[l337_GuY]

Yeah through My computer you will be able to see the HDD, And just right click format.

[JaNoob]

Hmm, I ran into a new problem that I can not fix. After sucessfully installing the OS and some drivers, I restarted my PC. When booting up, I recieve this message:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
system32\Drivers\pci.sys

I think it is because while I was installing my drivers, the ATI driver that I needed to install froze. So I clicked cancel, didn't bother to try an reinstall it from my cd. I figured I might as well just download and install the latest ATI driver that is out on the internet after I restart my PC.

I'm going to assume that i have to use the Recovery Console through the Win XP installation cd? I don't know how to use the Recovery Console, and I had no idea what else to do.

Thanks for the help.

[l337_GuY]

Well you could always just reformat and reinstall XP again. But this time once it's installed, Download the ATI driver.

And make sure you leave your old HDD unplugged when your installing XP on the new HDD.

[JaNoob]

Hmm, well the message told me to use the Win XP cd, and when the first screen comes up, press "r" for repair. That option sounds rather easy, but I don't know how to work the recovery console.

Reformating and reinstalling XP is going to take a long time... took at least 2 hours last night .

[JaNoob]

I found out how to fix my problem. Just enter, "Expand D:\i386\pci.sy_ c:\Windows\System32\drivers /y" for anyone thats interested.

I would like to ask how can I access the files on my old HDD through my new HDD. I do not know how to access the files thats on the desktop of the old HDD. When I click on "all users" on the old drive, I get access denied. But I can copy files, such as those found in "Programs".

[renegade600]

glad you got your problem solved.

As far as accessing the drive - see this.

[JaNoob]

Wow, that you so much for that link. Most of my files were on my desktop .