BSOD while computer was unattended

yowanvista said:

yoshm said:

Here's the next jcgriff (see my previous post).

Can anyone help?

Your attachments contain no recent dumps, the latest ones date from last year.

Yes - I know. I wrote before:

Yoshm said:

Note that I do not see any recent "mini-dumps" - why would I not be getting those? What about the full dump (MEMORY.DMP) - should I be uploading that somehow?

Since writing that, I went & checked and saw that my system was set to do a kernel dump. I changed it now to do minidumps. I don't know why it was set a year ago for mini & then switched to kernel...

Does the jcgriff tool not extract info from the kernel dump that would be of use in resolving it? If not, is there some other tool for analyzing the kernel dump?

Is there any information in the photos of the blue-screens that would help to understand what is going wrong? Anywhere else I can look to figure this out?

The good news is that since the BSOD a few days ago I haven't had another. IF I do, I will run jcgriff again & post - this time I hope with a current minidump.

thanks,
yosh

yoshm said:

yowanvista said:

yoshm said:

Here's the next jcgriff (see my previous post).

Can anyone help?

Your attachments contain no recent dumps, the latest ones date from last year.

Yes - I know. I wrote before:

Yoshm said:

Note that I do not see any recent "mini-dumps" - why would I not be getting those? What about the full dump (MEMORY.DMP) - should I be uploading that somehow?

Since writing that, I went & checked and saw that my system was set to do a kernel dump. I changed it now to do minidumps. I don't know why it was set a year ago for mini & then switched to kernel...

Does the jcgriff tool not extract info from the kernel dump that would be of use in resolving it? If not, is there some other tool for analyzing the kernel dump?

Is there any information in the photos of the blue-screens that would help to understand what is going wrong? Anywhere else I can look to figure this out?

The good news is that since the BSOD a few days ago I haven't had another. IF I do, I will run jcgriff again & post - this time I hope with a current minidump.

thanks,
yosh

You may use Bluescreenview but it produces very little details
Blue screen of death (STOP error) information in dump files.

[QUOTE=yowanvista;1896213]

yoshm said:

You may use Bluescreenview but it produces very little details
Blue screen of death (STOP error) information in dump files.

Thanks for the suggestion. I actually had already tried that tool - but it doesn't help with the MEMORY.DMP file - only minidumps - as he writes on that page: "BlueScreenView scans all your minidump files created during 'blue screen of death' crashes, and displays the information about all crashes in one table."

Any similar tool for interpreting the regular dump file?

[QUOTE=yoshm;1896830]

yowanvista said:

yoshm said:

You may use Bluescreenview but it produces very little details
Blue screen of death (STOP error) information in dump files.

Thanks for the suggestion. I actually had already tried that tool - but it doesn't help with the MEMORY.DMP file - only minidumps - as he writes on that page: "BlueScreenView scans all your minidump files created during 'blue screen of death' crashes, and displays the information about all crashes in one table."

Any similar tool for interpreting the regular dump file?

You could use WinDBG for detailed analysis of the memory dump but it could be little tricky .

[QUOTE=yowanvista;1897617][QUOTE=yoshm;1896830]

yowanvista said:

You could use WinDBG for detailed analysis of the memory dump but it could be little tricky .

Hmmm... never used it. Google shows it's something I should probably learn. One tutorial I saw also referred only to the minidump files. I presume, though, that I can use it with a Kernel Dump, too - but I have to learn about that still...

Thanks for the pointer. If you have any recommended resource for applying it to my problem I'll appreciate it.

I got a new BSOD a couple days ago - see photo attached.

I checked the minidump directory and there is NOT a dump there - despite my setting it to be saved and in the default location (see attached screenshot).

1. Why am I not getting a dump? I see on the BSOD that it was "initializing for crash dump" - but more than half an hour later it had not progressed.
2. Can anyone tell from the screen shots (today & previous) what is the problem or a direction for me to investigate further?

Thanks,
Yosh

Thanks very much for the quick answer. I would have replied sooner, but I've been battling my computer (as I'll describe below)

writhziden said:

It has to do with your backup software.

How are you able to see that?

Do you have a 3rd party backup application?

Yes - I use CrashPlan and have a subscription to backup to their cloud servers.

Do you have any pending backups through Windows Backup and Restore? Backup User and System Files

No. I have never set it up. I use CrashPlan. I just took a look in Control Panel and it says "Windows Backup has not been set up."

Meanwhile - here's what else has happened.

This morning I woke up the computer from Sleep. Within a few minutes I had a new BSOD (See 1st attachment).

I restarted and within a few minutes got a new BSOD (see 2nd attachment).

Both times it seemed to hang when it was supposed to be writing the dump file (I waited 5-10 minutes before restarting). I checked the Minidump directory and there are no new files there - only the old ones from 2011.

Since the BSOD advised me to run CHKDSK, I did. It found no errors (see 3rd attachment)

After CHKDSK, the computer restarted. I tried to Login and the computer hung without even giving me the password prompt.

Restarted and this time it hung after the password was accepted.

Restarted and this time I asked for "Last known good configuration" - and this time I was able to get on (and write this message).

I notice that the BSODs have different information on them (they're not all the same). Are there some clues there as to the source of my grief?

And do you have any idea how I can get the minidumps to be written when this happens again?

Thanks,
Yosh

All of these crashes and errors are hard disk related. I noted the backup software because of the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and the volsnap.sys driver associated with it. I wonder if your hard disk controller drivers are corrupted. Uninstall them and let Windows install the drivers on startup.

1. Click Start Menu
2. Right Click My Computer/Computer
3. Click Manage
4. Click Device Manager from the list on the left
5. Expand IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
6. Right click each device
7. Click Uninstall (do not click OK in the dialog box that pops up after hitting Uninstall)
8. Put a tick in Delete driver software for this device (if this option is available, otherwise just hit OK) and hit OK
9. Restart your computer only if Windows asks you to.
10. Let Windows install the drivers. You may need to do one device at a time if each device requires a restart.

Alternatively:

1. Login as an adminstrative user.
2. Click Start Menu
3. Click Control Panel
4. Click Hardware and Sound
5. Click Device Manager (the last link under Devices and Printers)
6. Expand IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
7. Right click each device
8. Click Uninstall (do not click OK in the dialog box that pops up after hitting Uninstall)
9. Put a tick in Delete driver software for this device (if this option is available, otherwise just hit OK) and hit OK
10. Restart your computer only if Windows asks you to.
11. Let Windows install the drivers. You may need to do one device at a time if each device requires a restart.

Hi writhziden,

You are right that all of them seem to be related to the disk - including the one this morning that referenced iaStor.sys. Maybe that is also why it can't write the dump file at the end of the blue screen.

Thanks for the instructions. Before I carry them out I want to be sure I understand if there's any risk in doing this - is there? I.E., if I uninstall the disk driver (there's only one - it's "Intel(R) 5 Series 4 Port SATA AHCI Controller"), is there any danger that my disk would be damaged by doing this or inaccessible altogether (e.g., if Windows DOES ask me to reboot - how will it read my disk if there is no driver?)

Many thanks for all your help,
Yosh