Windows XP BSOD during Recovery!!!

[Douglaspott22]

Hello:

I am hoping someone has gone through this before and would have some tips...

I have a Compaq Presario S4010CL (2.4 Intel Celeron, 40G harddrive and 1GB of RAM) with Windows XP Home Edition. I had a Geforce FX5200 before taking it out during troubleshooting.

A while back, the PC started to turn off and restart in the middle of an application...This became more frequent until it would not go through startup without turning off and rebooting (a neverending cycle of frustration). I tried going through in Safe-mode, but encountered the same problem. I did receive the dreaded blue screen on various occasions, but with varying error codes.

I tried the Windows XP rollback feature, but the problem continued...I tried the Compaq recovery tool, but got the same result.

Now I am trying to do a full system recovery with the six recovery disks that I set up when I first got the PC. Once it leet me get to the third disk before turning off and rebooting, but that's as far as I could get before getting the blue screen (0x0000007E). I removed everything to leave the system barebones(soundcard, video card) but still have the problem.

Does anyone out there have any idea what evil has taken over my machine???

Thank you very much!!!

[JemB]

right click on my computer go to properties, advanced, start up and shut down and see if it's set to reboot on failure. if it is untick it. this may stop the reboot but won't resolve the reason as to why it happens in the first place. for this you need to check your event viewer, go to control panel, administrative tools, event viewer, then probably system, look for failures and warnings and double click to see what they tell you. hope this gives a pointer or two.
also consider the possibility of a virus there are a few that will have this effect or similar

[Chaky]

Most likely that the faulty memory is causing this.
If there are 2 or more memory sticks, try running your machine without one to see if it is the faulty one. Repeat the procedure until you find which one is to blame.

[Douglaspott22]

Most likely that the faulty memory is causing this.
If there are 2 or more memory sticks, try running your machine without one to see if it is the faulty one. Repeat the procedure until you find which one is to blame.

Thanks for the input...

I have replaced the power supply and tried a new stick of RAM in both slots, one at a time. Now, when I boot with the recovery disk, it states that it is preparing the drive for recovery and then I get a "STOP: 0x0000008E" error each time. There is no operating system installed currently, since it failed during the initial recovery...Is this a bad motherboard??? Since this is a Compaq with preinstalled software, it did not come with the Windows XP disk - so if I change out the motherboard, I will also need to get Windows XP again!

Does anyone know where I can take this PC to get it analyzed for very cheap??? Thanks in advance for any help...This thing is driving me nuts!

[Chaky]

Is your HD showing up on the post screen?
Have you tried to disable LAN, Sound and other intergrated stuff on your motherboard?
Is there a change of behaviour when you try old and new memory sticks (You did mention 0x0000007E before and 0x0000008E now)
New memory sticks could be incompatible or different than the old one. You should be familiar of the new mem. speeds and frequencies. Check the BIOS memory settings.

If you can get your hands on windows XP installation CD, try installing it. (clean install with all hardware plugged in).

If all this fails.. it is either dying cpu or mobo.

[goldeagle2005]

Did you check if the board and/or the CPU were overheating? Go to the BIOS and search for something like PC Health. Under this, check your CPU temperatures and post them here.