Page Fault in Non-paged Area

[lbouslog]

I have a Dell laptop with Windows XP. I am getting a blue screen with the message "Page Fault in Non-paged Area; STOP: 0x000000050 (0xC1B00000, 0x00000000, 0x8053A6A3, 0x00000000". When I hit reboot in safe mode, the same message appears. Dell Tech support indicated I need to reload Windows.

I would like to recover some of the data on my hard drive. In order to do that, I purchased a SATA USB hard drive enclosure and inserted my hard drive in it. Several PC's that I have plugged this hard drive into go to the blue screen with the same message upon plugging in the USB. A couple of others just reboot over and over again.

Is there a way to recover data from my hard drive. Also my Windows OS installation files are on the same hard drive (I do not have an installation CD for this PC). How do I go about reloading windows (I may have Dell help me with this even though my software support has expired.

Any help on data recovery and windows reload will be appreciated.

 

[nobardin]

If you want to back up your data and windows will not boot then your best option would be to use a rescue cd. A rescue cd runs an operating system from a cd and takes your hard drive out of the equation. There are a few different ones out there, but I have only used the one called "puppy linux"

Here is a getting started guide for puppy linux http://www.puppylinux.org/home/overview

This is the "How to" manual for puppy linux..It will tell you how to burn it to a cd, run it and all the other stuff you need to know
http://www.puppylinux.org/manuals/puppy-40/english

This is the download location for puppy linux
http://www.puppylinux.org/downloads/official-releases/puppy-linux-411


This should allow you to retrieve your data that you do not want to lose.

Please post back and let us know if you were able to retrieve your data that you wanted to save, and then we will go from there.

 

[lbouslog]

Thanks, I got puppy linux installed and working. I can see the files I need to backup.

I have a second usb hard drive that I have used on the problem laptop. When I connected it to ANOTHER PC and started to make a new folder to put my backup files in, the "PAGE FAULT IN NON-PAGED AREA" message appeared on THAT PC. It happened again when I tried a second time. Both times, the second PC restarted and worked fine until I tried to create a folder in the USB hard drive. Now I am concerned that the usb hard drive may have a problem also.

When I mount the usb drive in Puppy Linux, It says that is was able to mount the drive, "but $LogFile indicates an unclean shutdown (0, 1) WARNING: Forced Mount Reseet $LogFile. It is mounted in read/write but advice is to only write to it in emergency situation. Recommendation is to open windows and fix the filesystem first!!!"

How can I be sure this is not a virus that I will spread to my other PC?

Should I backup the files on the usb hard drive to the second PC and reformat it so it is clean. Then make backup copies of the files from the problem PC?

 

[lbouslog]

Thanks, I got puppy linux installed and working. I can see the files I need to backup.

I have a second usb hard drive that I have used on the problem laptop. When I connected it to ANOTHER PC and started to make a new folder to put my backup files in, the "PAGE FAULT IN NON-PAGED AREA" message appeared on THAT PC. It happened again when I tried a second time. Both times, the second PC restarted and worked fine until I tried to create a folder in the USB hard drive. Now I am concerned that the usb hard drive may have a problem also.

How can I be sure this is not a virus that I will spread to my other PC?

Should I backup the files on the usb hard drive to the second PC and reformat it so it is clean. Then make backup copies of the files from the problem PC?

 

[nes83]

had same problem

i kept getting that same problem when i first got this computer and thought maybe it was a bad install of windows. so i formatted installed windows and it kept occuring again. then i read the sticky thing and got memtest86. turned out i had bad ram. i sent the ram back, got new ram, and ran perfect.

 

[nobardin]

My next question would be, can you burn the files you want to back up to a cd? Once "Puppy Linux" Loads from the CD (it loads into the RAM) if you have enough RAM you should be able to eject the "Puppy linux" cd then burn the files you need to a cd.

One other thought, can you copy the files directly to the external USB hard drive without making a folder for them?

If you think it could be a virus that has gotten on to your external USB hard drive, go here https://www.techspot.com/community/...lware-removal-preliminary-instructions.58138/ and run through thoes steps scanning the USB hard drive.

If you are comfortable doing so, copying the files that are already on the USB hard drive to another PC then formatting the USB hard drive would be a good idea in my opinion. Most external drives come pre formatted with the FAT32 file system and although there is debate on weither or not it is the best thing to do, I always format external hard drives with the NTFS file system. I am not a big fan of the FAT32 file system.

Please keep us up to date on this issue. If you decide to format the drive then try to back up the files from your computer please let us know how that goes. If you have any more questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

*edit*

Normally the first thing I would have done was have lbouslog post minidumps and/or run memtest...but seeing as how the computer will not boot I wasn't able to request such action to be taken.

 

[lbouslog]

Problem appears to be fixed

I was able to save my data to another PC. My PC came with a PC Restore by Symantec which restores the original software which came on the PC. While accessing that area (CNTRL- F11) I noticed an option to scan the hard drive for errors. I ran that scan and it found and repaired a couple of corrupt files. Upon rebooting, windows came up fine and has now worked for a couple of days.

Thanks for the help on this...I will keep the Puppy Linux CD available in case the problem reappears.

While using Puppy Linux, I attempted to save my configuration on the hard drive and messed up/forgot the password. Now when I restart puppy linux I have to enter "puppy pfix=ram" to keep it from trying to go to the saved configuration. Is there a configuration file I can delete to restore the Puppy Linux to its original state?

Thanks in advance