The Windows operating system is fairly resilient when it comes to recovering from errors. Even so, file system corruption, viral infections, disk controller failures and similar catastrophes can cause Windows to experience an unrecoverable error. When this happens, Windows displays the error in full-screen, non-windowed, text mode -- better known as the Blue Screen of Death.

Whenever a Blue Screen of Death (aka BSOD) error is displayed, the error contains a Stop message -- a short error message meant to give you a clue as to the cause of the problem. There are five different Stop messages that are commonly displayed when a BSOD error is disk-related. This is what each one means.