Persistent Mysterious BSOD, the Saga of Hal

I had a computer built for me in March, it was named Hal and has certainly lived up to its 2001 namesake. I had Hal for about a month and it would BSOD constantly, the builder who lives in another state walked me through several possible fixes and changes and I finally sent it back. He concluded that Hal had been damaged in shipping, the mother board was replaced, as was the graphics card (nvidia), the two hard drives remain intact. He said he also tested the RAM.

Hal returned and has still been having BSOD. They became more frequent until finally Hal would not start would not shut down, and windows would just hang at the pretty color windows screen. I pulled out the OEM disk that came with Hal, its all I could do at this point and reinstalled the OS.

After Hal was resurrected, I moved some files from the secondary storage drive over to the main drive, started updating drivers and went through the 82 windows updates that were available. At some point during this process, Hal would not boot to windows. I unplugged the second hard drive because I noted that it wasn't visible in the bios. After unplugging the WD Caviar Green Sata drive, windows booted up. It continues to boot and run since the clean install 2 days ago, but I haven't tried plugging the second drive back in (scared). I thought my problems were partly solved, but I was wrong. Yesterday, I came back to a black screen that said windows shut down unexpectedly. The BSOD was back. The error was ntfs.sys error so I ran a hard drive scan - no idea what that did except tell me at the end "this drive is clean".

Anyway, I'm attaching the files as per the directions in this forum. My name is not Dave, but I am considering unplugging Hal, permanently.

shannan said:

I had a computer built for me in March, it was named Hal and has certainly lived up to its 2001 namesake. I had Hal for about a month and it would BSOD constantly, the builder who lives in another state walked me through several possible fixes and changes and I finally sent it back. He concluded that Hal had been damaged in shipping, the mother board was replaced, as was the graphics card (nvidia), the two hard drives remain intact. He said he also tested the RAM.

Hal returned and has still been having BSOD. They became more frequent until finally Hal would not start would not shut down, and windows would just hang at the pretty color windows screen. I pulled out the OEM disk that came with Hal, its all I could do at this point and reinstalled the OS.

After Hal was resurrected, I moved some files from the secondary storage drive over to the main drive, started updating drivers and went through the 82 windows updates that were available. At some point during this process, Hal would not boot to windows. I unplugged the second hard drive because I noted that it wasn't visible in the bios. After unplugging the WD Caviar Green Sata drive, windows booted up. It continues to boot and run since the clean install 2 days ago, but I haven't tried plugging the second drive back in (scared). I thought my problems were partly solved, but I was wrong. Yesterday, I came back to a black screen that said windows shut down unexpectedly. The BSOD was back. The error was ntfs.sys error so I ran a hard drive scan - no idea what that did except tell me at the end "this drive is clean".

Anyway, I'm attaching the files as per the directions in this forum. My name is not Dave, but I am considering unplugging Hal, permanently.

This crash was caused by memory corruption from an un-named driver. Please run these two tests


Download a copy of Memtest86 and burn the ISO to a CD using Iso Recorder or another ISO burning program.

Boot from the CD, and leave it running for at least 5 or 6 passes.

Just remember, any time Memtest reports errors, it can be either bad RAM or a bad motherboard slot.

Test the sticks individually, and if you find a good one, test it in all slots.



Driver verifier

I'd suggest that you first backup your stuff and then make sure you've got access to another computer so you can contact us if problems arise. Then make a System Restore point (so you can restore the system using the Vista/Win7 Startup Repair feature).

In Windows 7 you can make a Startup Repair disk by going to Start....All Programs...Maintenance...Create a System Repair Disc - with Windows Vista you'll have to use your installation disk or the "Repair your computer" option at the top of the Safe Mode menu .

Then, here's the procedure:
- Go to Start and type in "verifier" (without the quotes) and press Enter
- Select "Create custom settings (for code developers)" and click "Next"
- Select "Select individual settings from a full list" and click "Next"
- Select everything EXCEPT FOR "Low Resource Simulation" and click "Next"
- Select "Select driver names from a list" and click "Next"
Then select all drivers NOT provided by Microsoft and click "Next"
- Select "Finish" on the next page.

Reboot the system and wait for it to crash to the Blue Screen. Continue to use your system normally, and if you know what causes the crash, do that repeatedly. The objective here is to get the system to crash because Driver Verifier is stressing the drivers out. If it doesn't crash for you, then let it run for at least 36 hours of continuous operation (an estimate on my part).

If you can't get into Windows because it crashes too soon, try it in Safe Mode.
If you can't get into Safe Mode, try using System Restore from your installation DVD to set the system back to the previous restore point that you created.