Hardware or XP problem?

[cool9]

Just reinstalled XP SP2/SP3 after random black screen @bootup, blue screen "page fault in non paged area", "ntfy.sys" errors for a week.

(Using WD HDD 250GB (120GB free & 5 mths old), 3GB RAM, GeForce 8600GT, Avast AV, Spybot, Malwarebytes.)

Before reinstalling I did:
(1) chkdsk (result: 0 KB in bad sectors)
(2) ran FIXBOOT
(3) Ran Memtest86 (no errors)
(4) No viruses found

After formatting and reinstalling fresh XP the drive has run well for over 20 hrs except two instances: blue screen w/x00002*** stop code, Windows froze during a session.

Do I have a hardware problem somewhere (HDD, Graphics card memory, etc.)?
Or are XP files corrupt somewhere? Should I get a new hard drive?

 

[zaka100]

Just go to a computer repair shop and ask them, most likely its something wrong with the hard drive. I had a problem like this running win7, like you, a blue screen came up with some error codes and saying there was a fault with the hard drive after that at random times the pc was on it kept on stopping but, later all I did was run my pc in safe mode and used 'system restore' and it worked without crashing suddenly at all! (try it).

 

[Yevrag35]

later all I did was run my pc in safe mode and used 'system restore' and it worked without crashing suddenly at all! (try it).

A system restore is a moot point at this stage, as he already said he wiped the drive clean and reinstalled.

If you go into your system's BIOS menu, can you tell us what SATA operation mode you're currently in? (e.g. - IDE, AHCI, RAID, etc.)

 

[cool9]

BIO SATA is set to "Native IDE". I have Gigabyte GA-MA785gpm-ud2h which is SATA 3Gb/s. (Other BIO SATA options are RAID or AHCI.)

Before reinstalling XP I checked for damaged sectors, bad memory, ran FIXMBR command in 'Windows XP Recovery Console' to repair corrupt Master Boot Record (ie. Black Screen), updated graphics driver. Drive ran fairly well when I got it to boot which was 90% of the time then crashed little too much. Couldn't find any HDD damage.

Black-Screen-at-Windows-XP-Startup - http://ezinearticles.com/?Black-Screen-at-Windows-XP-Startup&id=4148339

"The two main causes for the occurrence of black screen are:

There is a CD, DVD, or a floppy in the CD, DVD, or floppy drive at the time of starting your system.
The second reason could be corruption in Master Boot Record (MBR), Partition table(s), boot sector, and NTLDR file.
Corruption in either of these components breaks the boot sequence, resulting in black screen."

 

[yosa]

I get corrupt video displays and hardrive errors from bad connecting cables most often, good place to start; as far as hard drive, if its wearing out it will make extra noise; more than likely its a read error due to file corruption or bad data transfer. pull the drive and plug it into another cp to run a scan for disk integrity, should give you an indication if the drive is at fault.

 

[Net56]

As I talked with one of our field techs, he thinks it could be a failing file.

_________
Mary Piazza
Net56 - a Chicago IT company