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Major computer problem

Discussion in 'Questions and Answers' started by PerfectTeam, Jun 25, 2009.

  1. PerfectTeam

    PerfectTeam Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    So I shut down my computer last night and everything was fine and I went to turn it on this morning and I get a blue screen saying that there is a page fault in a non paged area. I don't even know what that means. I tried restarting my computer into safe mode and that didn't work. I'm completely lost on what to do and have no money for geek squad or something like that. Any suggestions?
     
  2. anlgp

    anlgp ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A

    It's a RAM issue.

    "When a program tries to access some address that is not currently in physical RAM, it generates an interrupt, called a Page Fault."

    http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm
     
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  3. PerfectTeam

    PerfectTeam Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    so how do I go about fixing it since I cant even get to the desktop?
     
  4. PerfectTeam

    PerfectTeam Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    also wondering if there is a way to save all the things I have on my hard drive in case i have to re install xp
     
  5. finattic79

    finattic79 Season Ticket Holder

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    If it is on startup it, then it is likely your ram went bad. Your info on your hardrive should still be good.
     
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  6. padre31

    padre31 Premium Member Luxury Box

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    I'd remove the ram and reboot it and see what happens, at worst I'd think you'd get a boot screen.
     
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  7. DaFish

    DaFish Well-Known Member

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    How many memory modules do you have installed? If you have two, I would remove one and boot up. If you get a BSOD, then place that module back in and remove the other. If it boots then you know which module has gone bad and you are up and running until you can afford to replace it.

    You can also use memtest to test for faulty memory.

    http://www.memtest.org/
     
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  8. PerfectTeam

    PerfectTeam Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    well I tried replacing the ram and it didnt work. same blue screen. i cant even get to the desktop to try anything. I tried doing the last configuration that was good and that didnt work. Safe mode did not work either. So basically right now Im having to use a computer that hasnt been used since 96. Any suggestions on backing up my hard drive? Dell has said they will send me a recovery disk but the only problem is my dvd rom wasn't working. Had some yellow exclamation point on the driver. All the help is much appreciated.
     
  9. padre31

    padre31 Premium Member Luxury Box

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    I'd then try to boot into Linux and see what happened, this seems like a motherboard failure, but I really don't think it is.

    I assume you are running XP?
     
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  10. hof13

    hof13 Premium Member Luxury Box

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    You could have some bad sectors on the hard drive. Can you boot to a command prompt and run chkdsk /r ?

    If you wind up buying a new hard drive to restore to, then you could change the dip switches on the existing hard drive to be a slave instead of a master - add it as a second hard drive, and then see what information is still available on it.
     
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  11. PerfectTeam

    PerfectTeam Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Yea I'm running XP. I don't know how to boot into linux.
     
  12. DaFish

    DaFish Well-Known Member

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    Unless it's SATA and then the switch is made in the BIOS.
     
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  13. padre31

    padre31 Premium Member Luxury Box

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    You could download a CD image and burn it, or put it on a thumb drive, or ask around to see if anyone has a linux CD laying around.

    The key thing is getting the box to boot into some OS just to rule out a whole list of other problems like a bad Bios, a virus, a faulty motherboard etc.

    Do you have any memory from a different computer that will work in that box? Or you could try the memory from unbootable box in a different computer to see if it has be ruined.
     
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  14. PerfectTeam

    PerfectTeam Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Ill try that. I took the RAM out of my sister's computer and same thing popped up. Ill put the RAM I took out of my computer and try it in hers. I can get into the XP recovery console. I did the chkdsk thing that was suggested and it said that the hard drive was fine.
     
  15. padre31

    padre31 Premium Member Luxury Box

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    1. Did your ram work in your sisters computer?

    2. I have -0- experience with XP recovery console, the only thing that comes to mind is if you manage a prompt type in C:> dir/p and see if your files are still there.

    3. I assume you have only a CD/DVD drive? I would try googling the name of your computer model along with mem error for example "Gateway solo 5300 mem error" and see what comes up.

    4. Try the troubleshooting page at Dell, there could be a hot key that puts you into the Bios such as F5 or fnl or whatever.

    5. The cool thing about a linux CD is they come with memtest built into it, if one can go to www.distrowatch.com you can order a CD/DVD for "free" and run memtest when it arrives.

    Or stick the ram in your sis's box..

    You can head over to computing.net and search around to see if someone else has had your problem and see if it was solved as well.
     
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  16. unluckyluciano

    unluckyluciano For My Hero JetsSuck

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    Its not always a ram issue, just an fyi. I had this error for awhile turned out I blew out my motherboard.
     
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  17. PerfectTeam

    PerfectTeam Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    I think it might be the motherboard. I just took the hard drive out of my sister's computer and plugged into mine and I couldn't do anything. Definitely not sure its the motherboard but the RAM works and the chkdsk i typed in when I got to the recovery console said the hard drive was good. So if it's the motherboard, hopefully thats cheaper to replace than getting a whole new computer.
     
  18. PerfectTeam

    PerfectTeam Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    I plugged the harddrive into another computer and was told there was a boot up virus on it. Any suggestions on how to get rid of it? Ive googled it but not quite understanding how to do it.
     
  19. PerfectTeam

    PerfectTeam Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    I also was wondering about possibly adding my hard drive to my sister's computer as a slave drive. Is that hard to do? Again thanks for all the help guys. Between my computer going and getting a $150 ticket for not having my headlights on at night for 30 feet, it was slightly trying couple of days.
     
  20. padre31

    padre31 Premium Member Luxury Box

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    http://www.geckoandfly.com/2008/11/...s-xp-or-vista-remove-boot-virus-from-startup/

    Master/Slave hard drive copy:

    http://www.webtechgeek.com/windows-copy-all-to-new-hard-drive.htm

    As for getting rid of the MBR virus, your simplest path is the Dell restore disk

    Or

    http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Windows/XP/Q_21185636.html

    I'd be cautious about rebooting the thing on your sis's computer as you could infect her box with your MBR virus..
     
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  21. DaFish

    DaFish Well-Known Member

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    You should be able to plug that hard drive in and use as a slave. Setup for an IDE and SATA drives are different though. On IDE drives you have to make sure the jumpers on the back of the drives are in the correct positions. Your sisters would be set to master and yours slave. (Can use cable select depending the position of each drive on the cable but master/slave is easiest). You will have to select the drive you want to boot from in the BIOS if the drives are SATA.

    padre is right about the virus issue. I would only do that if you were confident enough to know that your sis's antivirus would catch the virus. If your sis has Norton or Mcafee, I would say that is a no.
     
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  22. DaFish

    DaFish Well-Known Member

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    If it is a MBR issue then you could try the following if you have an XP disk handy.

    Boot from the XP disk and :

    While booting, the boot program on the CD detects any existing, bootable partitions on the hard disk, stops the boot process and only continues booting once a key has been pressed.

    On the first screen of the Windows Setup program, select "R" and on the next screen, select "K" to run the Recovery Console.



    Now, enter the following command

    fixmbr
     
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  23. PerfectTeam

    PerfectTeam Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    well i slaved the hard drive. problem is i cant get into my documents where everything is at. all the stuff i need is right in there. any suggestions?
     
  24. hof13

    hof13 Premium Member Luxury Box

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    Are you looking for "My documents" from your other computer?

    If you open up exploper (right mouse click on "start" and click on "explore") - and go to "My computer" and expand it, you should see a list of drives. Your hard drive should be "D:", "E:", "F:", or something like that depending on the number of CD/DVD drives and any other drives added for other devices.

    You'll need to go "Documents and Settings" and then find the folder that you logged in under on the old machine. There's a "My documents" folder under there that used to be your "My documents" on the old computer.
     
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  25. PerfectTeam

    PerfectTeam Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    Yea, the problem was I kept getting access denied everytime I tried to open it. I finally was able to restart in safe mode and change ownership of everything. I can finally get in there.
     
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