Major BSODs and their typical causes.
| Sr No |
Stop Error
|
Description
|
Significance
|
Troubleshooting steps
|
| 1 | 0x000000ED | UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME | As the name suggests, related to the file system. Could be due to a corruption toboot.ini or a bad HDD | 1. Run diags on HDD. Fails? Try a Format-Reinstall. No go? Replace HDD |
| 2 Passes. Run a chkdsk /r. No go? | ||||
| 3. Format-Reinstall | ||||
| 2 | 0x00000024 | NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM | As the name suggests, related to the file system. Could be due to a bad HDD | 1. Run diags on HDD. Fails? Try a Format-Reinstall. No go? Replace HDD |
| 2. Passes. Run a chkdsk /r to repair the file system. No go? | ||||
| 3. Format-Reinstall | ||||
| 3 | 0x0000007B | INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE | Windows lost access to the system partition or boot volume during the startup process. | Is the HDD detected in BIOS? |
| Check the SATA Operation field in the System BIOS. In most cases an improper setting is the main cause of this error. Try toggling betweenAutodetect / ATA & Autodetect / AHCI | ||||
| 4 | 0x0000000A | IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL | Typically due to a bad driver, or faulty orincompatible 3rd party hardware or software | 1. Always proble : when & how did this problem start? |
| 0x0000007E | SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION _NOT_HANDLED | 2. Did the cust try adding any new third party hardware or software | ||
| 0x0000008E | KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED | (This could be anything a PCI card, a new video driver, windows update, a 3rd party wireless card | ||
| 3. Try a System Restore | ||||
| 4. Remove all PCI cards, uninstall all 3rd party H/W and S/W | ||||
| 5. Try reinstalling all the drivers in the right order | ||||
| 6. Run diags on Memory | ||||
| 7. Try a PC Restorex | ||||
| 8. If all these fails, you could suspected memory | ||||
| 5 | 0x00000050 | PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA | Memory Related : Requested data was not in memory. An invalid system memory address was referenced. Defective memory (RAM) might cause this Stop error | 1. Determine how this started happening |
| 2. Try a PC Restore | ||||
| 3. Run diags on memory. | ||||
| 4. Test with one memory at a time if possible | ||||
| 6 | 0x0000004E | PFN_LIST_CORRUPT | Memory Related | PFN stands for "Page File Number". " This error indicates that the memory management file is corrupted. Can be caused by bad RAM, or by drivers passing bad memory descriptor lists." |
| 7 | 0x000000EA | THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER | Video Related : Generally related to video card or video driver | 1. Update the BIOS to the latest version |
| 2. Update the video driver | ||||
| 3. In case you are getting nv4_disp 0xEA error try the nVidia drivers available from www.nVidia.com | ||||
| 8 | 0x0000007A | KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR | A page of kernel data was not found in the pagefile and could not be read into memory | Be sure to run diags on Memory |
| 9 | 0xC0000218 | UNKNOWN_HARD_ERROR | As the name suggests, there could be a variety of causes : Could be due to a bad HDD, a corrupted registry hive, a missing system file The Registry files may have been corrupted because of hard disk failure or some other hardware problem. A driver may have corrupted the Registry data while loading into memory, or the memory where the Registry is loading may have a parity error | 1. Be sure to run extended 32 bit diags on system. |
| 2. If this comes up during OS reinstall, it can be caused by the CD drive spinning the OS CD too fast. Try updating the firmware for the drive | ||||
| 3. Flash the BIOS |