| RotoGuru Computer Forum View the Forum Registry XML Get RSS Feed for this thread | Self-edit this thread |
|
| 0 |
Subject: BSOD Driver Issue Posted by: Guru - [330592710] Wed, Apr 19, 2006, 09:10 My desktop machine won't boot this morning. I get the following blue screen, saying "DRIVER_IQRL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL"  This happened once last week, and when I rebooted, it worked fine. But this morning, every attempt to boot produces this screen. When I try to go into safe mode, the system hangs after loading driver agpCPQ.sys, which I thought might be a clue, but after a little research, it appears that this might typically be the last driver to load, so it may not be the problem. Safe mode won't load, however. I can't remember how to flash the BIOS, although some sites seem to suggest that. I haven't done a lot of research yet, but figured I'd throw this out there in case someone else has an idea of what to try next. As far as I can recall, I haven't installed any hardware lately, and the only recent software installation was a state tax module for my tax software. This is a Dell desktop, Windows XP Pro, about 15 months old. | |||||||
| 1 | WiddleAvi ID: 3022278 Wed, Apr 19, 2006, 10:36 |
If I remember correctly you need to go to dell's website enter in your service tag and download the latest SATA driver for you hard drive. | ||||||
| 2 | Guru ID: 330592710 Wed, Apr 19, 2006, 10:47 | Thanks, but I don't think that will help until I can get the machine to boot up. I guess the next task is to try to get it to boot from a recovery CD. | ||||||
| 3 | Guru ID: 330592710 Wed, Apr 19, 2006, 14:15 |
I'm getting nowhere. I tried booting from the Windows XP Installation CD. At one point, it gave me an opportunity to load an SATA driver, but it only seems to want to look for it on drive A:, and I have no A: drive on this machine. I can't find a way to tell it to look at a different (e.g., CD) drive When I try to use the repair facility, I can get to a c: prompt, but when I try to run a CHKDSK, it stalls at 0%. So I tried a repair installation, but it appears that the first step it is trying to do is a chkdsk, and again, stalls at 0% completed. At that point, the light that indicates disk activity shows no activity. Does this sound like the hard drive is the problem? If so, a hardware issue, or a driver issue? I haven't tried a full install yet, but I suspect I may have the same problem. I could buy a new hard drive and attempt to install Windows XP on it, and then use my existing drive (if it works) to hold data. But I don't want to buy a new hard drive if that isn't likely to fix the problem. I have most of my important files recently backed up, but there are a few things on there I would like to recover if possible, so I'm not ready to try to wipe the drive at this point. Any ideas on what to try next? | ||||||
| 4 | Frick@Work Donor ID: 3410101718 Wed, Apr 19, 2006, 14:19 |
Could you take the drive out, put in as a secondary(slave) hd on a different computer. Hopefully you should at least be able to tell if it is a hardware or software issue. Or you might be able to get the files you want off, before you do a complete wipe/reinstall. | ||||||
| 5 | youngroman ID: 50818914 Wed, Apr 19, 2006, 14:33 |
for me it sounds like a hard-drive issue. either software, hardware or a loose cable. I'd take/create a Knoppix CD and boot from it. if the hard-drive is accessible within Knoppix, you can use a USB-stick to back up your data. I think you can even do a disk-check from there. | ||||||
| 6 | biliruben Leader ID: 589301110 Wed, Apr 19, 2006, 14:43 |
I don't think there is such a think as a slave SATA drive. Can you enter setup (F2, I think for Dell) and modify the boot sequence so you can boot from the CD -Rom, or does it bomb before that? | ||||||
| 7 | Frick@Work Donor ID: 3410101718 Wed, Apr 19, 2006, 14:59 | I like YR's idea. I did something similar when I couldn't get Windows to install on an old computer. As long as you can set the computer to boot from the CD-drive first it should work. | ||||||
| 8 | Guru ID: 330592710 Wed, Apr 19, 2006, 15:28 |
I can set it to boot from a CD. Haven't been able to get a windows load from there, but I can get to a c: prompt. I notice that there is a second SATA connection socket on the mother board. If I put a new SATA hard drive in the socket where the current hard disk is connected, and connect the old one to the second socket, shouldn't both work? I did look in my old desktop to see if I could try installing the hard drive as a second drive in that machine, but can't find any SATA connections on that mother board. The existing drive in that one is an IDE. It's an old Windows 98 machine, vintage circa 1999-2000, I'd guess. | ||||||
| 9 | Guru ID: 330592710 Wed, Apr 19, 2006, 15:30 | I'll take a look at the Knoppix site... | ||||||
| 10 | Guru ID: 330592710 Wed, Apr 19, 2006, 15:59 | If I get a new Serial ATA drive, any recommendations on what to look for or what to avoid? | ||||||
| 11 | Boxman ID: 41324194 Wed, Apr 19, 2006, 16:11 |
Here's a resource I use when looking for new PC components and it's been rock solid for me. Tom's Hardware | ||||||
| 12 | biliruben Leader ID: 589301110 Wed, Apr 19, 2006, 17:02 |
Sorry, Guru. I am just contemplating building a new machine, and have read a little bit about them, but not enough to give a rec. My tech guy thought they were all pretty similarly reliable - in other words built to last until the 1 year warranty runs out and not much beyond that. ;) So I guess your drive isn't showing up even in DOS? | ||||||
| 13 | Guru ID: 330592710 Wed, Apr 19, 2006, 18:17 |
No, the C: drive does show up in DOS - although it's tough for me to even get to a DOS prompt. I can see and step through the file directory. That makes me think that the data is retrievable. Perhaps there is just a bad sector on the disk. | ||||||
| 14 | The Beezer Leader ID: 191202817 Wed, Apr 19, 2006, 19:14 |
Guru, I was just reading about the Recovery Console feature in XP the other day - you might want to give it a try. Here Here is an article on it - you might want to start with the longer instruction on page 2. | ||||||
| 15 | Guru ID: 330592710 Thu, Apr 20, 2006, 14:57 |
OK - Here's where I am now. I bought a new Seagate SATA drive, and installed it, and then installed Windows XP Pro. I normally connect to the internet through Comcast cable. I share the connection through a Linksys router. The modem connects to the router, and then the router connects to each computer. So I plugged in the ethernet cable from the router to the computer. I was hoping that everything would simply autodetect and I'd be online in no time. But thus far, I haven't been able to get the internet connection going. I tried rebooting the computer. I tried rebooting the modem. So far, nothing. When I look at the Network Connection screen, I see a 1394 Connection (Connected, Firewalled, 1394 Net Adapter). I do not see a Local Area Connection as well. On my connected laptop, I have both a 1394 connection icon and a LAN icon. So, I'm guessing that something has to be installed. Router software or drivers? Some sort of protocol? (TCP/IP is already installed) Can anyone point me in the right direction? I haven't even tried to access the old hard drive yet (left it unconnected for now). I figured I would work toward getting the basic system up and running before that. | ||||||
| 16 | Guru ID: 330592710 Thu, Apr 20, 2006, 15:55 |
Hmmm... Looks like my ethernet controller driver is not installed. That's probably the first culprit. | ||||||
| 17 | Guru ID: 330592710 Fri, Apr 21, 2006, 09:46 | Finally found all of the missing drivers. Back online with this machine, but tons of software left to re-install. Next step is to reconnect the old drive and see if I can retrieve the data. | ||||||
| 18 | Guru ID: 330592710 Fri, Apr 21, 2006, 12:10 |
I have been able to copy over some files from the old HD, although it's a laborious process. First, I have to "take ownership" of certain folders in order to regain access to them. If I try to do this for too large of a set of folders & related subfolders, I eventually end up with the same BSOD that I ran into originally. I'm hoping that this is the same issue related to that drive that started this whole episode, but I suppose it's also possible that something else in the machine (motherboard, perhaps?) is the culprit. Time will tell. Maybe. In any event, I think I can reclaim the data I need, which is a good thing. Once I get beyond that, I can try installing more software & hardware to see if the problem persists. | ||||||
| 19 | Guru ID: 330592710 Fri, Apr 21, 2006, 14:56 |
Question on partitioning a hard drive. The new drive is a 160GB drive. When I initially set it up, the installation process suggested that I only include 137 GB in the main partition. I probably could have overridden that, but the implication was that I could later format and access that unclaimed 23GB of space. So, now that I have Windows XP installed, and have begun copying over files, how can I get access to that extra space? I assume it would be associated with a different drive letter, which is fine. I started poking around on Google, but the resources I've come across so far assume that I'm starting with a blank disk, and I only a small portion of this disk is now "blank". Can anyone give me a jump start in the right direction? | ||||||
| 20 | youngroman ID: 50818914 Fri, Apr 21, 2006, 15:05 | go into your winxp/system32 folder and execute diskmgmt.msc (you can also get there through the control-panel). there you see all your drives and how they are partitioned. you can partition/format /assign drive-letter of the not used part of your disk there. | ||||||
| 21 | StLCards Leader ID: 31010716 Fri, Apr 21, 2006, 15:16 |
I think you can do it from the computer management window. Right click on My Computer and select 'Manage'. Then select 'Disk Management' under Storage. You should be able to see your drives and partitions there. You should be able to select the unused portion and right click on it, giving you options to format or partition it. Seems that during your setup it should have asked you to partition the remaining portion of the drive and requested a drive letter to assign to it. | ||||||
| 22 | R9 Leader ID: 02624472 Fri, Apr 21, 2006, 16:09 |
That's one of the most annoying BSOD pages you can see. It can literally be attributed to anything. It happens when a driver or program tries accessing memory and has a problem doing so. Since that can be the memory itself, the mobo, hard drive, etc. it can be caused by anything, and the only real way to troubleshoot this is to try taking parts and use replacements until it stops happening. My last problem like this was my friend's Gigabyte Athlon 64 motherboard (754 socket) not liking two sticks of RAM together. Since both sticks of RAM passed a memtest just fine (together and individually) and since the problem only occured in games or memory-heavy programs, I had to try the vid card and sound card (after formatting twice to make sure it wasn't a driver conflict) before moving on to the RAM, and finally the mobo. (And anyone who's built a PC knows how annoying changing the mobo is.) Out of curiosity, what are your system specs Guru? If its an Athlon 64, you may have the same problem my friend did. Otherwise I'd say it could be the motherboard, RAM or hard drive. Given that you experience problems when you put the old HD back in, it looks like that may be it, but you never know. Copying large files uses RAM as well, and RAM conflicts could be mobo-related. | ||||||
| 23 | Guru ID: 330592710 Fri, Apr 21, 2006, 16:31 |
Dell Dimension 8400 Series, Intel Pentium 4 Processor 540 (3.2 GHz) w/HT Technology and 1MB cache. 1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 400MHz. [I don't know what that all means, but I copied it straight from the purchase receipt] | ||||||
| 24 | R9 Leader ID: 02624472 Fri, Apr 21, 2006, 16:36 |
Ah right, Dell is always with Intel. Not my area of expertise unfortunately, I mostly build AMD systems. Does the computer run without problems when the old HD is not plugged in? | ||||||
| 25 | Guru ID: 330592710 Fri, Apr 21, 2006, 17:04 |
So far, the only time it has blue-screened is when I am accessing the old HD. I'm taking that as a good sign, although I really haven't been doing much but installing software and transferring files. Actually, I got a different blue screen once when installing the printer, but I had a driver problem at that point that may have caused it. At least is was a different message. And since I got the printer drivers resolved, that hasn't happened again. | ||||||
| 26 | StLCards Leader ID: 31010716 Fri, Apr 21, 2006, 17:27 |
I have looked around a bit online and it seems that a driver issue could be one problem among many others. Here is one link that seems relevant. Certainly updating the iastor.sys driver couldn't hurt. When a drive gets corrupted it may appear to still be working but may cause erratic behavior. | ||||||
| 27 | R9 Leader ID: 02624472 Fri, Apr 21, 2006, 17:46 |
Except that he's re-installed windows onto a new HD and it still happens, so its safe to say the file wasn't the cause, just an effect of the problem. A different BSOD isn't a good sign though. Hopefully after you're done backing things up you wont get anymore errors, but it looks unlikely now. Something still isn't right. (Obviously that's of no help other then stating the obvious... lol, sorry.) There's a hardware error/conflict somewhere. My first recommendation would be to run a memtest. Memtest website. Its a small utility that tests your RAM sticks for errors. | ||||||
| ||||||||
Post a reply to this message: (But first, how about checking out this sponsor?) | ||||||||