SetupDD.sys

Alright... this one has me a little stumped. I've been looking all through google looking for answers but it seems this problem has happened under circumstances that aren't mines... so here's my problem and see if anyone can help me. Alright.. first of all my system runs a Asus K8V Deluxe mobo with an AMD 3600+, a gig of kingston (2x512), a 250gb SATA, Nvidia 6800GT, Win XP with SP1, 500W power supply, a DVD/CD-RW combo and a lightscribe burner. I put it together about 6 months ago, and its been running beautifully. The most recent upgrade has been the power supply, which has been in it about a month already. I use it constantly because its my gamer. Anyway I was installing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. To be honest, and I'm sorry if this violates board rules or anything, but I downloaded it off the internet from a torrent. Everything was going good, it came in ISO format and I mounted it to my virtual and was installing it. Since it is a pretty big game and was taking a while to install, I went to watch TV but was still at my computer desk... all of a sudden the damn thing reboots and I'm like whoa wtf... when its at Window's loading screen, it flashes a blue screen with some writing on it and reboots immediately... and will continue this loop forever. It won't matter if I'm in any kind of Safe mood, still does the same thing. I goto a recovery console to see when I can find and while I was trying different things I got the screen to pop up and freeze. I get a STOP message saying:

setupdd.sys - Address F77F8C0b base at F77CF000 Datestamp 367d8507

I've read that it might be a RAM problem. I have yet to mess with the RAM yet, but I've tried everything else under the sun. It will NOT let me delete the partition, format, fix MBR, nothing. When i load recovery console and try to at least look at my files in hopes of saving them, directory cannot be enumerated. As of right now I'm stuck. I really don't mind having to wipe the drive because like i said, its a gamer so there isn't anything I can't reinstall. Plus, all my games and ISO's...etc are on my external 300gb... but because it happened for apparently no damn reason I'd like to know why! And what I can do to stop it from happening again. Since Microsoft's support says it's a RAM issue, I'd like to say that I installed XP with the gig of ram in it. My original setup was the mobo, 64-bit processor, the SATA HD, and the gig of ram. I'm pretty familiar with computers.. enough to build them and fix them if problems arise... but I'm not all pro so any help, even it seems like a basic advice or not would be appreciated. Thanks a lot for any input.

If you cannot get into any Safe Mode option nor utilize the Recovery Console the only thing I can suggest is a Repair Install of XP.

Here is a good guide to the Recovery Console:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_rec.htm

A first try would be to run Chkdsk.

Here is a good guide to a Repair Install:

http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

There are some posts here that do suggest the RAM error possibility:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...pdd.sys&qt_g=1

In my opinion I would only be concerned with the RAM if you get this same error during a Repair Install of XP. That would be my first step.


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Thanks for the links. I will definately check them out. Just to clarify I am able to choose safe mode, it does pop that screen up, but regardless after loading a few files... it pauses for a moment and just reboots. I've done a chkdsk as well... I get something to the effect of that it has unrecoverable errors. I just the check on my ram.. not with any software or anything but just by taking each one out and trying it again. I really don't think that is it but you never know when it comes to these kinds of errors. Thanks again though for the links. I'll read them right now. If anyone else has any suggestions please lemme know! Thnx again.

Well.. since my last post I have been fervently going from message board to message board to message board seeing what I can find. Searched for strings of errors in Google and all kinds of fun stuff....... i finally found this program called Spinrite... it is seriously an amazing program... I recommend this to anyone with a similar problem as mines. Just so anyone reading this thread is wondering if the program is right for them... here was my situations:

my computer was working great and then it started this crap. It wouldn't take any fix I threw at it, it wouldn't even recognize windows in recovery console. It couldn't even enumerate a directory tree my drive was so !@#$ed up. This spinrite program costs very little money and is a very little download but all you do is create a bootable CD-ROM or floppy, pop it in and it gives you the option to do a low-level or high-level recovery option. Mines was really jacked up so it was a 6 hour job in "quick mode".. and as a matter of fact.. it is still doing it right now... but I will post on whether or not it solved my problem or not. it seems to be sorting out my hard drive though... we'll see. Again any advice is still helpful being as I'm not out of the woods yet. Laterz.