Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing Forum

Hello,

I am working on a laptop from Dell ST: BKH9MH1 (64 bit). I tried to update it to service pack 2 for windows Vista, on reboot I got a blue screen and the message IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. I was able to get it to boot in safe mode and by doing a restore. I updated most the drivers on the system and updated the BIOS, and tried it again and received another BSOD. I ran the Dell Diag, on the full system and it did not come up with any errors. Tried to install service pack again and still got the BSOD. I then ran windows error checking on the computer’s hard drive to be safe and it found nothing. After I ran the error checking Service pack installed without any issues. I tried other updates and got the same BSOD until I ran another error checking then it installed. I ran spin rite on the disk to see if it found anything which it did not, and windows memory diag could not run on it because it will not handle 64 bit. Anyone have any ideas.


Thanks,

This is usually caused by either a defective driver or defective hardware, but it could also be corruption in the OS files or file system. I recommend you use the guidelines I posted in the following article to see if you can identify what driver is the cause: Troubleshooting Windows crashes (BSOD/Stop errors).

I'd also recommend doing a clean install to a spare HDD (do not install or update any drivers), then install SP1 and SP2. If that works, then install the new drivers one at a time, restarting in-between. That may expose the bad driver or hardware, or may just end up working properly if the problem originally was elsewhere.

Other than that, here are a number of MSKB articles you can check: http://support.microsoft.com/search/def ... spid=11732

Let me know how the story ends... Scott.

Just a guess,


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975070

Thanks for the help.

Scott, I tried looking at the mini dump file but its not a windows based error. Is there a way to tell what key I need to look at them. I was looking though the event log and really did not find anything helpful. The windows debugging tools is great and have used it in the past (thanks for that). I will try what everyone has said and see what happens.

A BSOD is indeed a Windows error. Of course the cause can be due to non-Windows issues such as bad drivers, defective hardware, corrupted files, etc. Scott.

Sorry I guess I did not word that correctly. You stated "To facilitate examining memory dumps, the WinDbg.exe program needs access to special files containing symbols. Symbols are normally created by the linker used in the programming process, which also creates the final .exe or .dll program file. You won't have access to symbols for most 3rd party drivers and programs you run (unless you wrote and/or compiled them yourself), "

Is there a way to tell what symbols I need to get? I have mine pointed to windows like you have setup in the forum post, but it can not read it? Just looking for advice?


Also I am looking for a hard drive to follow what you said.

You won't need symbols for the 3rd party driver to be able to identify which driver it is. The example I used was a BSOD caused by a video driver, for which I had no "symbols" either. Scott.

Well I did what you told me to do, I put a new hard drive in and installed a fresh copy of windows. I did not install any drivers, but updated the machine from SP1 to SP2 with out any issues. I installed the drivers for devices that were not found already, and tried to do more updates and they went though just fine. Thanks for the help.