I've got a bit of a problem. Windows starts to load fine (displays the logo and everything), then pops up a BSOD out of nowhere. The error it displays is

STOP: 0x0000008e (0xC0000005, 0xBF803EB6, 0xB43BB7C4, 0x00000000)

Win32k.sys Address BF803EB6 base at BF800000 DateStamp 47e0e106

I've tried booting it in safe mode, last good config, and normally and the same thing happens every time. I've tried reinstalling windows from booting off a windows xp home sp1 cd, but once it comes to the screen where you pick a partition to install to, my hard drive isn't showing up. I can get my USB thumbdrive and WD external HD to show up, but not my C: drive. I've actually got XP Pro installed on it, but lost the XP Pro CD. If I can get this old XP Home Sp1 cd to work that'd be great, or somehow fix win32k.sys. Any suggestions here?

If you can't see your HDD make sure your Data Cable is connected properly between the HDD and Motherboard, if it still doesn't work try another Data Cable possbily.

Thanks for the reply, but I know there's no problem with the cables as the computer will boot off the same hard drive. I thought maybe there was something different between xp home and xp pro, something that doesn't allow me to see an xp pro install or the drive it's installed on if I'm using an xp home cd. any other suggestions?

Well when you install XP Pro or XP Home they are different and the Motherboard is set up for either 1 of the OS's.

Is there anything important on the HDD that you need to save?

To fix the win32k.sys file you need to boot off the Disk and use it to Repair Windows Files as you have already tried, so you may need to format or find the Original Disk which you seem to be out of luck finding.

Yes, there's quite a few files on there I need to save. I found a pretty good bootdisk utility that I can use for that though. If I end up grabbing what I need off of the hard drive and format it, do you think it will show up in the list when I go to install windows xp home instead, or do you think I should just come up with a copy of windows xp pro and it will work from there?

I would suggest you install with what Disks you have in this Case "XP Home" unless you find your XP Pro Disk.

If you are formating the Disk you are ruling out Operating System and Software problems as well, also I would suggest you make sure you have the Drivers Disk or Download the latest Drivers so you can get every Device working. So hopefully C: should show up other wise it may be a dieing HDD, but will wait and see

I've got all the drivers I need to get everything up and working afterward, so no problems there. I'm going to go ahead and format the drive and see what happens, but I guess my last question is will a xp pro auth. key work with xp home? I'm guessing it won't, and I could use my girlfriends key, but do you know if works anyway?

Well, I wiped the entire drive after I got what I needed off it, including the 2 partitions reserved for windows and dell utilities, making one partition. When I tried to install windows xp home again, the hard drive still isn't showing up, yet I can still see it when I boot off my flash drive. Any suggestions?

Is it possible for you to try using another HDD and see if it boots off that. Its certainly a Hardware problem just not sure where about.

It sounds to me like you need to load a HD controller driver at the beginning of Windows setup.

An XP pro key will not work for XP home. There are multiple versions of each OS, and a key will only work for the correct version. IE: OEM XP Home key will not work on an XP Home upgrade. It might accept the key but will fail to activate Windows.

Using your GF's key will also most likely fail as well.

Check your BIOS to see if your HD is recognized. I believe it is.

If your BIOS sees your HD but Windows doesn't you will need to get a HD controller driver from your mobo or computer manufacturer. At the beginning of Windows setup it will allow you to specify SCSI drivers, this applies for SATA or PATA drives as well. Copy the driver you need to a floppy and then follow the prompts. This should allow Windows to see your drive.

Good luck! I have the same issue right now at one of my clients. I will check back to see how you are doing.

That's another possibility forgot about that, Good point :grinthumb.

Hi I just registered because my wife's laptop just had this problem a few minutes ago.

However, her's did show the Anti-XP 2008 window telling that her pc was infected and to download the software. We've read about this virus before and how it was transmitted through email so she wasn't sure why it showed up during regular internet browsing.

So she just turned off her machine not knowing what to do...rebooted and now she got the BSOD as well.

So I'm guessing it's the same damn XP 2008 virus that's no longer in just our email but somehow it's just appearing randomly.

I went to Microsoft's techforum website. It talks about the Anti XP 08 virus and some things people have done to remedy their problem.

However the problem with my wife's laptop is that she can't even boot to the OS now. Quite a nasty virus.

Hopefully this will provide the techies w/ a lead.

Good point. Bios shows the hard drive as working properly, and I have been able to partially boot windows xp pro off of it (before getting to the blue screen). I haven't had to load a driver for the hard drive on any other windows installation that I've done though...it's kind of odd how it shows my usb flash drive and wd combo external hard drive, but not the internal that came with the comp when I bought it. I'll have to go out on the internet and see if I can find something. Good thinking though.

Woody, I was planning on buying a small hard drive just for that purpose. If weich's idea doesn't goes as planned, I think that'll be my next step. One other question though; would it be possible for me to take the same hard drive, install it in a friends computer and install (hopefully) windows on it, then reinstall it in mine? I wasn't sure what windows might do when it installs drivers for hardware on my buddys computer, and then I boot it up in my own.

same problem

I have the same problem. BSOD 0x8E. Already reformatted 6 computers with the same error win32k.sys. See http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic111071.html.


I always end up reinstalling windows. I delete the partition first then create a new one.

Quicksilver02, it will not work to put Windows on one machine and move it to another. The drivers windows installs have to be for the machine it is on or it will not work.

nickc is right Quicksilver02, basically when you install Windows it configures itself for that Machine HDD's can't be transferred between different Computers I'm afraid.

You could attempt that but the success rate wouldn't be very great. If you try this make sure that you install on a computer with similar hardware. If you have an AMD processor don't install on an Intel, or vice versa.

Once you have Windows installed and functioning move the HD to your computer but DO NOT LET WINDOWS BOOT. Press F8 to bring up your boot choices and select Safe Mode. Safe Mode will load the minimum set of drivers. If Windows boots successfully to safe Mode then go into Device Manager and remove everything that can be removed. Reboot and allow Windows to boot as Normal. The computer will detect all of the new HW and install it.

This could work but it is not guaranteed.

What model computer do you have? If it is a customer build what motherboard is it?

Yeah, I didn't think that would work very well, but I'd never tried it either. I've got a dell XPS, 3.2 ghz pentium dual processor, 160 gb samsung sata hd, dvd rewriter of some sort, 256 mb nvidia something or other graphics card, 1024 mb ram, not sure about the power supply. I was thinking something else as well here. I can't load any hard drive drivers because it keeps asking for me to put a disk in A:, but I don't have a 3.5 in drive and I'm not going to go buy one just for that purpose either, but might it be true that SATA hd's weren't around when microsoft first introduced windows xp home sp1? I figured if that was the case, even though BIOS detects it just fine, maybe windows doesn't load any drivers for it because they didn't have any at the time?

I'll need the model number completely, or a link to the dell support page.

Go to support.dell.com and search by model number or express service code.

It is possible that your computer doesn't even have on-board floppy support, but if it did you could probably find a drive for less than $10 and that would probably be worth it.

Didn't your system come with restore disks? I would think any necessary drivers would already be loaded on that.

You could also purchase a USB floppy drive. Newegg has them for less than $20.

If you have access to a functional computer you could build an Ultimate Boot CD(UBCD). It takes your Windows disk, a writable CD, and a little time, but it could be worth it.

Theoretically you could boot to the CD, go into the Windows environment and theoretically see your HD.

I think the best option is pasting a link to your PC and I can probably figure out what to do from there.

stick in the dell cd and boot of it, may have a "make SATA floppy driver disk"
use this whilst booting the windows cd, when it comes up with "press F6 for scsi driver" or whatever, press it and point it to the one on the floppy disk.
Alternativly, get your model number of the dell and google the drivers, they will be on the dell site.
A format should fix your initial problem