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BSoD flashes and restarts when booting! [Closed]

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Registration date
Tuesday July 8, 2008
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Last seen
July 13, 2008
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 abc -
Hello!
Last night I booted up my pc which I hadn't used for a fair few days, upon loading I wasn't able to access the start menu on windows as it would simply play a "dum" sound however msn and all the other programs loaded in the background but I was only able to access msn. I restarted my pc as you would because I couldn't shut down through windows and what happens? I get the "A problem has occured.." and with whichever option I choose - safe mode, windows etc. I get the blue screen of death flashing, I can't even read it because within a fraction of a second it reboots! I can't get into bios because when I do get in, whichever option I choose it freezes on and reboots! I really don't want to loose any of my files because there's hundreds of pounds worth of downloaded music and software on it which I cannot back up as I can't access it!

If anyone knows how to fix this problem, please help! I heard it could be a virus but wouldn't McAfee have detected that?
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10 replies

Answer 1 / 10

Although this is an older thread I'd like pass on my experience; I had recently bought some new components to upgrade my PC (CPU, MoBo, GPU, RAM, HDD), so I thought I'd take the old components and put them in an old case to give myself a decent backup computer.
For reference, the specs of the computer built from the old components:
Athlon FX4000+ CPU (2.4GHz, non-OCd)
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe
Seagate 500GB 7,200rpm
Nvidia GeForce 8600GT
PSU is ambiguous, taken from a stripped down Dell pre-made, output is 250w

I transferred all the components fine, but hadn't yet got around to formatting and installing windows on the new HDD. For the time being, I thought it would be best just to use the new HDD with the old components, thinking that I could just wipe/reinstall windows when I was ready. I put xp professional on the HDD (running with the old components still) and it loaded fine. The first time I came to reboot following software installation, however, I would encounter the exact problem described here: the BSoD would flash up for a tiny amount of time and the system would reboot indefinitely.
For a while I thought it was the PSU, as the one I was using was slightly less powerful than my newer unit. In the end I disconnected everything non-essential (removing my USB mouse, USB wireless adapter and a stick of RAM, leaving the CPU, GPU, DVD Drive, one stick of RAM, HDD and PS/2 Keyboard attached) and attempted to reboot.
The system booted fine in this configuration, I could start Windows normally or from last known good configuration etc.
So, I set about trying to reconnect the components I required. First, the USB mouse; no luck, system flashed BSoD as before then entered a loop cycle.
Next, the extra stick of RAM. This allowed the system to boot just fine. At this point I attempted to connect the USB mouse once windows had booted, this worked fine as well, as long as I didn't restart the machine. At this point I also plugged in the USB adapter once Windows had booted, and got that to work as well. At this point I chose to update / install the drivers for my graphics card, chipset, etc.
At this point I wanted to try to reboot with just the Wireless adapter plugged in, but accidentally left the mouse plugged in instead. Windows booted normally, without hitting the BSoD sequence. So as a final check, I plugged everything back into the computer and hit restart. No luck with this, it entered the loop again. Curious as to whether the order of the USB ports had anything to do with this, I tried to plug the USB devices into different ports. This produced no joy either.
As my computer currently stands, I can boot with all internal hardware connected and a single USB device, and the system will start up perfectly. As soon as I attempt to boot with multiple USB devices, however, I enter the same cycle of BSoD.
At the moment, I can live with having to plug my mouse in whenever I start the computer, but I feel that it will get irritating after a while. Just my thoughts.
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Answer 2 / 10

Hey, I'm having the exact same problem....but for the second time!

I'm currently using the same laptop that did it the first time!

To my understanding something in my registry had been edited/removed. This caused the system to run unstable, thus windows would not allow itself to progress past the splash screen and load.

Everything hardware is fine, memory is fine, harddrive is fine!

You will, however, have to located you windows xp disk. I had to reinstall windows (which obviously has the correct registry settings on it) and everything works fine.

Now my second laptop has just done it, just need to find my bloody disc....its hiding from me :x

LIKELY CAUSE:
Adware, spyware...
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Hey Chris,

I'm having this same problem (BSOD every time I boot up just as Windows is starting). Sorry for my ignorance, but how do you renistall windows from a disk? Just slam it in the drive and it'll install automatically? Or is it more complicated than that?

Cheers

Marc
Answer 3 / 10

I am a field software representative working for DoD and deal with XP on a regular basis. I'm no pro but I try to resolve things best I can to keep the customer up and running.

I had the same anomaly happen on a Dell M90 laptop running a 200gb drive and 4gb of Ram. On bootup, system would show normal XP splash screen, flash BSOD, reboot, offer the screen to choose safe mode, last known good cofig, start normally, etc. ... afer 30 seconds (if no choice was made) the cycle would repeat. I swapped in a know good hard drive and anomy persisted. I wrote it off as a bad motherboard or BIOS chip.

Fast forward 2 months. Same bad laptop is still in closet because customer had not gotten it turned in for warranty repair. A different Dell M90 would not recognize one of its two 2gb ram chips. I swapped memory out of the first M90 and whataya know... the 2nd M90 inherited the same bootloop issue as the 1st ... booted past bios, showed XP splash, flashed BDOD, stopped briefly to offer boot options, lather rinse, repeat.

Diagnosis for flashing BSOD and a bootloop: corrupt memory

Good luck
Fred
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An instant flashing blue screen of death does NOT mean RAM/memory is corrupt. I know this from experience, as I'm experiencing this issue right now on a dual-boot hard drive with XP and Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu boots 100% fine, but XP insists on doing an idiotic reboot sequence with a flashing blue screen of death. Also, the hard drive is still intact (and can be fully accessed from Ubuntu) so it's not a hard drive problem. I have heard rumors that the order of SATA drives can confuse Windows - so make sure to plug them in sequentially (i.e. if you have two SATA drives, make sure they are in SATA slots 1 and 2 - not 1 and 3 or 1 and 4). I can't verify that this fixes the problem, but it may help you.

If I am able to solve the problem I'll post a solution here. In the meantime, I'd strongly recommend trying Ubuntu. You won't be sorry. www.ubuntu.com.
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Your assumption that the same symptoms always demand the same diagnosis is foolish. Bite your tongue when offering concrete diagnosis to loose diagnostics descriptions.
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hi fred , my dell d600 has does the same thing , I have asked my dad and he said it would need reinstalling and that would fix it , what do you recommend
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Try the reinstall first,if it stil does it. youmay need a new Hard drive. if you can get to the desk top burn your one time recovery disc ,My Grand daughters HP Lap top Did the same thing. go to blue screen then shut off then restarted. I burn her recovery disc and then install a new hard drive and Now for over 8months it has worked fine. Hope this helps. Oh by the way hers was doing this from the day she Brought it. But she said nothing till after the warrenty was out.. Spookietooth.
Answer 4 / 10

It is not necessarily your HD, I know this because I am working on a computer as we speak with this problem, and I replaced the hard drive, that didnt fix the problem. then I removed the cmos battery, to reset the bios and all settings, that didnt work either but sometimes it will work. so now I am working my way down the list of things it could be.

Skwerly Wrath
Answer 5 / 10

my asus eeepc 900ha has it so I just go to the boot menu and chuck in vista/xp and start again but not my d drive I dont start
Answer 6 / 10

i have the same proble. I dont think it is short of Disk space as I have lot of space.

can any one help me out on this.
Answer 7 / 10

@Tightning: Thank you, that fixed my problem! (Well, it allows me to actually get into windows as obviously it is just a workaround now but atleast I now have a unique symptom that I can search for a solution with)

@Anyone else reading this thread, give Tightning's solution a try as it may just solve your problem too.
Answer 8 / 10

I know this was submitted a longggg time ago, but I feel your pain....even though I'm sure the problem has been taken care of by now. I was running an old Windows XP system, and it had been running very slowly. It would take forever for things to load, and it would often freeze up and I'd have to restart it. well, one day there was a power surge in my apartment. My computer had been running at the time, but no programs were open. It shut itself down, so I turned it back on, and then the blue screen of death would flash for a fraction of a second much like yours did. then it would take me to the black start up screen, giving options like start windows normally or in safe mode or whatever. no matter what option i'd pick, windows would not start up. it just kept looping, showing the blue screen of death and then taking me back to the black start up screen. I ended up having to buy a new computer. I stumbled upon this today because my new windows 7 computer just flashed the blue screen of death, saying it had to shut itself down because there was an error. then it took me to that black start up screen. luckily, it started up okay after I hit "start windows normally." I was freaking out, thinking that somehow it was fried. but all I had done was turn it on out of shut down mode, and my computer had shut down normally last night. i'm trying to figure out what caused it because i'm a little afraid to shut it down again now.
Answer 9 / 10

you can't just go around telling people to buy new hard drives. try doing a recovery console option from the boot disk, from command prompt type: \

chkdisk \ p

and then

chkdisc \ f or press f to fix now if it gives you this choice.

If this does not work connect the drive to a good drive running xp transfer files from damged drive to good drive, and then reformat and install xp on bad drive.
Answer 10 / 10

It's no virus, your hard drive in your computer is shot, you'll need to buy another.
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