Lately I've found that my computer will more or less randomly switch to a blue screen that says "An error has occurred and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage." or something to that extent.
The only troubleshooting help I got was to run a disk check upon startup to check for errors, but I have tried twice now and the disk check freezes at 55 percent!
The freezes occurred first while defragmenting and I believe this happened after I deleted (without uninstalling, my mistake) a large file group (Steam, an online gaming prog that runs upon startup for things like HL2.)
I am not sure how this could have effected things, but that was the last significant thing I remember donig before noticing this. I have not downloaded any drivers recently.
My Norton and AVG virus scans turned up nothing.
I have backed up most of my needed files onto CD just in case, but I'd rather NOT format my hard drive unless there's nothing else I can do.
Any ideas of causes and solutions?
Thanks in advance.
The only troubleshooting help I got was to run a disk check upon startup to check for errors, but I have tried twice now and the disk check freezes at 55 percent!
The freezes occurred first while defragmenting and I believe this happened after I deleted (without uninstalling, my mistake) a large file group (Steam, an online gaming prog that runs upon startup for things like HL2.)
I am not sure how this could have effected things, but that was the last significant thing I remember donig before noticing this. I have not downloaded any drivers recently.
My Norton and AVG virus scans turned up nothing.
I have backed up most of my needed files onto CD just in case, but I'd rather NOT format my hard drive unless there's nothing else I can do.
Any ideas of causes and solutions?
Thanks in advance.