Pavillion Notebook Blue Screen on Startup

[MayDay]

Hi,

I'm running a HP Pavillion (ZD7265ea) with windows XP and I keep getting a bluescreen on startup.

The laptop boots up, goes to the boot options screen (Safe mode|Safe mode with Networking|Safe mode with Comand prompt| Last Known Good config|Start Normally), no matter what option i try i get a blue screen that disappears too fast for me to read, the system restarts and goes back to the boot options screen.

I've tried a complete reinstall but it hasn't seemed to work, disk scans come back clean, no errors, no idea what to do next really.

Has anyone come accross this before, or know how to sort it?

Ally

[jlreich]

Sounds like it could be some bad ram. Run Memtest (http://www.memtest.org/#downiso).

[Sylvander]

Try running Knoppix from a Knoppix Linux Live CD and see how that performs.

If it runs OK there's nothing wrong with the hardware.

Ideally you'd already have a Knoppix live CD of a version that you've used in the past and know works on your present hardware setup.

[MayDay]

OK, here's an update, I should have taken the time to say this last night, but it was a bit late.

First of all, this problem is intermittant, it'll happen constantly for a dozen or so restarts, I'll close it, come back later and it'll start first time (Except that hasn't happened this time). I've managed to get a pic of the blue screen that appears for a split second before the system restarts (Thanks to my trusty camera on multi-shot!):

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any hardware or software is properly installed.
If this is a new installation, ask yopur hardware or software manufacturer for any windows updates you might need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing.
If you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select Advanced Startup Options, and then select Safe Mode.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x000000ED (0x822FE9E0, 0xC000009C, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
(This code is just an example, I've managed to get four pictures, and it's different in each one, but the format is the same)

Now, whether I select Safe Mode or not it still restarts, and I haven't installed any hardware or software. Might need a hand to try the BIOS bits, because that's simply way over my head.

Could this be caused by a boot sector virus? Also, it's a fairly old laptop, so could it be possible that the hard drive is on the way out? And like you guys have said, the RAM could be bad (The code that flashes up makes me think of a memory address, whether this is right or not I don't know though).

[Sylvander]

"STOP 0x000000ED UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME" Error Message When You Restart Your Computer
CAUSE
• The file system is damaged and cannot be mounted.
If this is the case, restart the computer to the Recovery Console, and then use the chkdsk /r command to repair the volume. After you repair the volume, check your hardware to isolate the cause of the file system damage. (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=297185)

Is the Windows partition using the NTFS or FAT32 file system?
If NTFS:
Use [as many of] the Recovery Console commands [as it takes to fix]...
chkdsk C: /r command to repair the [C:] volume.
fixmbr (which rewrites the bootstrap code of the MBR)
fixboot followed by fixboot C: (which rewrites the code in the PBS)
bootcfg /rebuild (which rewrites boot.ini to suit)

If FAT32:
The FREE "Emergency Boot CD" [EBCD] includes nice easy-to-use utilities.
e.g.
1. "MS Scandisk" to scan & fix errors in the file system.
[I ALWAYS scan my FAT32 partitions immediately after (if ever) being forced to switch off without 1st closing Windows correctly, because it always results in some file problems like lost fragment or chains]
2. "Recover MBR" to do just that. [This fixed in a blink the problem I had with failure to boot and similar warning, had it working in 3 minutes]
3. The "Create NT/2000/XP Boot Floppy" program makes a [sort of] "Universal Boot Floppy". The boot floppy substitutes for the "boot partition" on the HDD [usually the "Boot Partition" & "System Partition" are the same partition] with its 3 boot files .
When you boot the boot.ini it presents you with a menu of 8 choices made from 2 drives each with 4 partitions.
If your system partition [with Windows] is on the 1st drive, 1st partition, that's what you choose and it will load the Windows files from there.
Here's that particular line in the boot.ini file from among the 8 choices:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="NT, [B]First harddisk, first partition" /sos
This assumes Windows is installed in a folder named Windows.
If it isn't, change the boot.ini file settings to suit.
If this produces a fix [the files are faulty], replace the copies on the HDD by the floppy copies [better to edit your boot.ini appropriately than use the "universal" version].