Physical memory dump - boot disk failure - help!!

tcall

Recently my computer has had something of a breakdown, and refuses to get better >:(
When I'm logged on, the computer is noticably slower than normal and eventually it freezes.
Next, I get a blue screen with loads of text, at the bottom of which it says "beginning physical memory dump".
The only thing left to do then is switch off and reboot. Only then I get a message "boot disk failure. Insert system disk"
Unplugging, switching on and off and pressing restart sometimes eventually gets it booting again, but after a few minutes of use I soon get the blue screen of death all over again.
Any ideas what is wrong and how to sort it, as I hate to part with any hard earned cash ;D

robnye

what version of windows do you have installed

95/98/me/xp?

tcall

Sorry, XP pro.

robnye

when your pc boots up,

go into windows explorer, right click on your hard disk ie c:

select tools tab

select scan for errors

tcall

Right, done that. It didn't give me any 'results', and the problem is still there

An update, the top of the blue screen says "kernel_stack_inpage_error", and I've also noticed that on the occassions that the system won't reboot, it doesn't seem to be detecting my HDD.
Does it look like my HDD is knackered?

robnye

do you have anti virus software loaded?

if you do update it then run a full virus scan

it is possible you have a virus in the hard disk boot record.

see it describes possible cause and resolution
KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR

have you changed anything internally recently, ie installed new hardware.. you might have knocked the cable from the harddisk out of position!

tcall

I haven't installed new hardware and my virus definitions are up-to-date and virus software not reporting any virus.
I've checked the event viewer and there seem to be quite a lot of disk warnings which give the message "An error was detected on device \Device\harddisk0\D during a paging operation.
Seem to be a lot of Logitech mouse errors too, which is odd, as I don't have a Logitech mouse :-/

robnye

check control panel> system > hardware

see if the system thinks it has a logitech mouse installed, if it does uninstall/disable it

also in hardware, click on harddisk, then troubleshoot button

when did you last run a full virus scan?
just updating the virus definition files, stops viruses getting in, but doesnt remove them if they are already there.....

tcall

Ran latest virus check earlier this morning.
No Logitech mouse listed in hardware.
In 'hardware', i've clicked on device manager, then the hard disk, then scanned for hareware changes. Nothing!
There's no troubleshoot button.
This is driving me nuts. Maybe I should just reinstall.

robnye

sorry i should have said, select hard disk, then right click and open properties.

does this happen the first time you boot up the pc. or is your pc normally left powered on 24x7

have you tried searching on the web for the error messages

Hintza

Do yo have a cheap USB plugged in?

If so unplug that.

Seems there can be too much of a power drain.

I had a similar problem that sorted it...only trouble is i need to crawl under desk to unplug the speakers and plug in printer......what a pain!!!