Solved BSOD crash while playing TSW, can't boot to safe mode to diagnose

[Yippee38]

My wife's PC crashed today. She's been running the PC for months without problem. Today she tried to play a game (The Secret World). After playing for about 20 minutes, she got a BSOD. When she rebooted, the PC is giving her the "Startup Repair cannot repair this computer automatically." In order to diagnose the problem, I need to boot into safe mode, but because her machine has a UEFI BIOD, I cannot figure out how to get it to boot into Safe Mode. Can anybody tell me how to get into safe mode? BTW, the motherboard is an ASUS P8Z77-M Pro.

 

[Golden]

Can she boot into Normal Mode?

 

[Yippee38]

Negative. Every time I tries to boot it I get the Startup Repair thing.

 

[Golden]

OK. Please try a Startup Repair from a DVD:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html

 

[Yippee38]

Will do. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[Yippee38]

Using the install disc I was able to get into the Startup Repair and run it three times with a reboot in between each try. I'm trying to run SFC /SCANNOW, but it says, "There is a system repair pending which requires a reboot to complete. Restart Windows and run sfc again." I guess I should have said in my OP that SFC is what I was specifically trying to run. I've restarted twice, but I keep getting that error.

I created a system image using Macrium when I installed Windows (this time) on her system. I can restore that, but I'm afraid that this will lose any diag info that can help diagnose the cause of the crash. This is probably the sixth or seventh time this has happened on this PC. I was able to recover the PC once - I'm pretty sure it was the first time - but usually I end up having to reformat and install from scratch. Since that's quite time consuming, I did the Macrium backup this time.

Am I better off restoring the backup image and try to figure out what's wrong with the system like that, or try to get the access to the dump files/log files that can help diagnose the cause of the crash first?

 

[Yippee38]

I guess the more important question is; Is there a way I can get the PC to the point where I can run SFC /SCANNOW? If so, how?

 

[Golden]

We can easily determine the cause of the crashes if they are the fault of 3rd party drivers.

For now reatore using the Macrium image, and tommorrow I'll take through the process of stressing the 3rd party drivers to find the cause of the problems.

 

[Yippee38]

Will do. It will have to wait until tomorrow though, as I'm on my way to work, and won't be back until then.

 

[Yippee38]

I got the restore on the image file done. However, when I created the image, was just on a clean install. I have to install drivers and standard programs. I should have that done tomorrow.

What is the first thing you want me to do to help you help me troubleshoot this?

 

[Golden]

OK. Get Windows 7 fully updated first, then post back here.

 

[Yippee38]

Just a quick update. I'm still working on getting the machine restored. I ran the Macrium restore, but that was to a pristine system with nothing on it. Today I loaded all the standard software (browsers, e-mail client, firewall, anti-virus, etc.). Right now, it's restoring from the nightly backup of the user directory. When that's done (it's saying 8-9 days, but I hope that's being conservative), I'll let you know.

 

[Golden]

8/9 days? Is that all user files (photos etc. etc.)?

 

[Yippee38]

8/9 days? Is that all user files (photos etc. etc.)?

It's the entire user directory. 19.2 Gb of data. Like most things, as it goes, the number goes down. It's down to 20 hours now. I'll be out of town for the next two days anyway. I'll get back to you on Friday, the 2nd.

 

[Yippee38]

Ok. I've got everything restored and installed. I created a new Macrium backup in case the problem recurs.

You still willing to help me figure out what's wrong with the system?

 

[Golden]

Follow:
1. Log in as administrator, open Windows Explorer and go to C:\Windows\Minidump
2. Delete all .dmp files in that folder
3. Run Driver Verifier as follows:

Run Driver Verifier for 24 hours or the occurrence of the next crash, whichever is earlier.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/101379-driver-verifier-enable-disable.html

Driver Verifier will cause your computer to run very sluggishly - this is normal. What it is trying to do is force your system to BSOD and isolate the offending driver/s. When it does, reboot, disable driver verifier, reboot as normal, re-run the DM Log Collector, and upload the new ZIP file here.

I recommend creating a system restore point before turning on driver verifier:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/697-system-restore-point-create.html

If your system fails to boot to desktop once driver verifier is enabled, turn it off by booting into Safe Mode:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/69585-safe-mode.html

 

[Yippee38]

I've got Driver Verifier enabled. Should I go ahead and run the game (The Secret World) that crashes the system all the time?

<edit>NM. It crashed almost immediately. I'll get that log file in a minute.</edit>

<edit2>Here it is</edit2>

 

[Golden]

*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                        Bugcheck Analysis                                    *
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************

Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.

BugCheck C4, {83, 9d800, 2800, 9f}

*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for em006_64.dat
*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for em006_64.dat
Probably caused by :[B][COLOR="Red"] em006_64.dat[/COLOR][/B] ( em006_64+cf6a )

Followup: MachineOwner
---------

ESET is blamed in the .dmp file. Uninstall it. I see you also have Comodo installed - generally you should only ever have one anti-virus product installed since they often will conflict with one another - this may be what is happening here.

 

[Yippee38]

Ok. I'll give that a try.

FWIW, I only have the anti-virus part of ESET loaded, and the Firewall part of Comodo installed.

 

[Golden]

In that case, replace ESET with MSE so you have some antivirus protection - MSE has never been shown to cause a BSOD, which is why I am suggesting it here.