Steps to begin the diagnosis of
BSOD errors aka
Blue Screen of Death
Check your
Event Viewer via
Administrative Tools.
Open the
System as well as
Application tabs and look for red
X errors that coincide with your problem. Details here:
How to view and manage event logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
Basic information on Event Viewer errors can be found here:
EventID.Net
Also turn off the auto restart function:
How to turn off Auto Restart in XP
Right click on My Computer
Select Properties
Select the Advanced tab then the Startup & Recovery section
Select the Settings button
Uncheck "Automatically restart" and then click Apply
This will give you a
Blue Screen with the error message rather than restarting the computer.
Write down the error detail then use the reset button on the computer to restart.
Also while in this section change the
Write debugging information setting to:
Kernel memory dump
Basic information about these errors can be found here:
Troubleshooting Windows STOP Messages
Then if your
Blue Screen is showing a
Memory Dump do the following:
Go to
start |
Search |
All files and folders and type in
.dmp in the
All or part of the file name: box.
Note the location of your
.dmp files.
If no
.dmp files check for
minidump.
Remember this location and the path that leads to it.
Then:
1) Download and install the
Debugging Tools from Microsoft
All you need do is download and install this. Make no attempt to start or run it.
2) Download and install this
debugwiz
This is a DOS based batch file that will command the above Microsoft Tools.
3) Open the Wiz & Browse to, or paste in the path to, your
.dmp file.
4) After the Wiz creates a Text document attach it back to your thread.
If you are looking for links on how to interpret this data for yourself try here first:
Using the Windows Debugger:
Exceptions, Bugchecks, and Register Context
