Thanks to anyone for giving this a go, It's becoming a real pain. It's also getting quite late so apologies if it's a little all over the place. Feel free to ask if you need any more information.
OK, so some basics to start:
My PC:
Asus PC5KC Mobo
4GB Corsair DDR 800mhz PC26400 XMS2 Memory
Antec 500w PSU
8800GTS 512mb
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Windows Vista 32bit Ultimate (SP1)
A few months ago I was experiencing a few blue screens every so often, I cant remember exactly what they were but I flashed my BIOS to the latest version and it fixed my issues. This was about 1 month ago, so I'm not sure if this is related but this is the ONLY CHANGE I have made for a while now. It's also worth nothing that the BSOD's were abit different than what I have now, and never prevented me from booting. I was also able to re-install vista without issue.
So, the problem:
I was last using my PC on Sunday night, was working fine watching a film on it (one that i've seen before, so I dont expect foul play from it) - shut it down as usual, no problem.
Thankfully I had Monday off work, so I was quite looking forward to getting on it and having a nice relaxing day infront of it. I turn it on as usual, and I received a series of blue screens, I didnt get the change to write these down but from memory they included an error about a ntfs.sys file, one about bootmgr and a kernal issue. Always mentioning that the file was either missing or corrupt. Tried rebooting several times but gave up.
Tried again a few hours later and WOW, it booted up fine? Got into windows and thought hmm, OK, nevermind. Played abit of Football Manager and opened up quite a few apps and Firefox windows, started to browse Youtube and it crashed on me. Not sure again on the BSOD, but I'm pretty sure it was the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL bsod. Tried again to turn my machine on but no luck. Went out, came back a few hours later and it worked AGAIN. This time, I had an alert about new hardware. It turns out the drivers for my GFX card were corrupt from looking in device manager so I re-downloaded the latest drivers, when I rebooted. Same problem again.
Once again, after an hour or two I was able to attempt to re-install Vista, found my CD and loaded it in.
So I try and re-install vista on my hardrive. Doesnt even get that far. Loads up the "Windows is loading files..."
Receive a windows boot manager error:
Windows Failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause (etc).
FILE: \windows\system32\config\system
STATUS: 0xc0000098
INFO: Windows failed to load because the system registry file is missing, or corrupt.
At this point I was wondering if my hardrive was the problem, so I managed to find my spare HD (very recent, unused) and plugged that in. Whenever I attempt to install windows on that:
Windows Failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause (etc)
FILE: \windows\system32\drivers\volmgrx.sys
Status: 0xc0000098
Eventually I managed to load up from my old hardrive, and my previously planned check disk started to run:
Got to stage 4 and crashed.....
BSOD Technical Information:
STOP: 0x00000008e (0xc0000005, 0x81c892cc, 0x8bef79a0, 0x00000000)
No more information on this one.
As a last resort, I've tried to reflash my BIOS, this went through fine. But upon booting to windows (from my old HD), I received another BSOD:
This time,
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
STOP: 0x0000000A (0xcc598147, 0x0000001B, 0x00000001, 0x81d05214)
Anyone have any ideas? I'd like to think of myself as pretty technical but BSOD's are not something that I have any experiance of! Many Thanks in advance for any ideas!
(Oh and 1 other thing, I have already switched my RAM as part of my original problem stated above - Can always try it again)
OK, so some basics to start:
My PC:
Asus PC5KC Mobo
4GB Corsair DDR 800mhz PC26400 XMS2 Memory
Antec 500w PSU
8800GTS 512mb
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Windows Vista 32bit Ultimate (SP1)
A few months ago I was experiencing a few blue screens every so often, I cant remember exactly what they were but I flashed my BIOS to the latest version and it fixed my issues. This was about 1 month ago, so I'm not sure if this is related but this is the ONLY CHANGE I have made for a while now. It's also worth nothing that the BSOD's were abit different than what I have now, and never prevented me from booting. I was also able to re-install vista without issue.
So, the problem:
I was last using my PC on Sunday night, was working fine watching a film on it (one that i've seen before, so I dont expect foul play from it) - shut it down as usual, no problem.
Thankfully I had Monday off work, so I was quite looking forward to getting on it and having a nice relaxing day infront of it. I turn it on as usual, and I received a series of blue screens, I didnt get the change to write these down but from memory they included an error about a ntfs.sys file, one about bootmgr and a kernal issue. Always mentioning that the file was either missing or corrupt. Tried rebooting several times but gave up.
Tried again a few hours later and WOW, it booted up fine? Got into windows and thought hmm, OK, nevermind. Played abit of Football Manager and opened up quite a few apps and Firefox windows, started to browse Youtube and it crashed on me. Not sure again on the BSOD, but I'm pretty sure it was the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL bsod. Tried again to turn my machine on but no luck. Went out, came back a few hours later and it worked AGAIN. This time, I had an alert about new hardware. It turns out the drivers for my GFX card were corrupt from looking in device manager so I re-downloaded the latest drivers, when I rebooted. Same problem again.
Once again, after an hour or two I was able to attempt to re-install Vista, found my CD and loaded it in.
So I try and re-install vista on my hardrive. Doesnt even get that far. Loads up the "Windows is loading files..."
Receive a windows boot manager error:
Windows Failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause (etc).
FILE: \windows\system32\config\system
STATUS: 0xc0000098
INFO: Windows failed to load because the system registry file is missing, or corrupt.
At this point I was wondering if my hardrive was the problem, so I managed to find my spare HD (very recent, unused) and plugged that in. Whenever I attempt to install windows on that:
Windows Failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause (etc)
FILE: \windows\system32\drivers\volmgrx.sys
Status: 0xc0000098
Eventually I managed to load up from my old hardrive, and my previously planned check disk started to run:
Got to stage 4 and crashed.....
BSOD Technical Information:
STOP: 0x00000008e (0xc0000005, 0x81c892cc, 0x8bef79a0, 0x00000000)
No more information on this one.
As a last resort, I've tried to reflash my BIOS, this went through fine. But upon booting to windows (from my old HD), I received another BSOD:
This time,
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
STOP: 0x0000000A (0xcc598147, 0x0000001B, 0x00000001, 0x81d05214)
Anyone have any ideas? I'd like to think of myself as pretty technical but BSOD's are not something that I have any experiance of! Many Thanks in advance for any ideas!
(Oh and 1 other thing, I have already switched my RAM as part of my original problem stated above - Can always try it again)