win xp bsod

It all started some time ago. One of my HDDs started to go bad (suddently stopped working at random times, but always showed up again after a restart of the system) so I figured it was about time to exchange it. I couldn't afford to buy a new HDD then so I unplugged the bad drive and waited for better times. Then I bought an external HDD and plugged it in (surprised that no CD with drivers was included), my win xp pro found it and the bad drive (which I had plugged in again). The HDD had apparently gotten worse by being unplugged (stopped working faster, sometimes didn't show up after reboot) so I started to work immediately. I started to transfer the files. Bluescreen. Restarted, tried again, bluescreen. Restarted, tried again, no bluescreen (weird, I thought). The files were transfered, the bad disk removed from the system. When I was at it I thought it best to backup my other HDD too, you guessed it, bluescreen. It all ended with me emptying the second HDD and formating it because for some reason I had made it a dynamic disk, now it's basic again. Anyway, I thought the it was the old, bad drive that caused the BSODs, but that was pretty much out of the question when I started to work on the second drive. I did a scan with Whocrashed (dumps found below) and found out that ntkrnlpa.exe was causing them, after a few hours on Google I still had no idea of how to fix it. Everyone I could find that had solved their problem was either using win 7 or a laptop- Almost everytime it was caused by faulty drivers of some sort and as I didn't get a driver-CD with my external HDD I went to the manufacturers homepage to look for the drivers. No drivers for XP though. I'm pretty sure that it's the External drive that are causing the BSOD's, but I'm not really sure about how to fix it… I got some help from another site, advising me to run memtest. So I let it run during this weekend while I was away. 59 hours later it hadn't found any errors. Other things I've done: Unplugged the external drive. I thought that the hdd was causing the bsod, and when I unplugged it I didn't get a bluescreen for a while, but then it came, the external drive is not the bad dude here. Uninstalled and reinstalled my video card drivers. It semi-worked with my last case of bsod, did absolutely nothing thins time. Check my computer with driver checker. On the other site someone mentioned bad drivers so I had it checked. One obsolete driver having something to do with the motherboard. Nothing. So, what's the next step from here? My computer if free from visures and malware (according to kaspersky internet security and Malwarebytes anti-malware) and pretty much up to date on windows. I built the computer myself some 3 years ago, so a compability error is out. Report from whocrashed: On Mon 2010-07-26 23:58:11 your computer crashed This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe Bugcheck code: 0xA (0xE8, 0x2, 0x1, 0x806E6A16) Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini072710-01.dmp file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe product: Operativsystemet Microsoft® Windows® company: Microsoft Corporation description: NT:s kernel och system The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect, possibly the culprit may be another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time. On Sat 2010-07-24 02:15:45 your computer crashed This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe Bugcheck code: 0xA (0xA59CD000, 0x2, 0x1, 0x806ECAB2) Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini072410-01.dmp file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe product: Operativsystemet Microsoft® Windows® company: Microsoft Corporation description: NT:s kernel och system The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect, possibly the culprit may be another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time. On Fri 2010-07-23 19:07:12 your computer crashed This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe Bugcheck code: 0xA (0xFFFFFFF0, 0x2, 0x0, 0x80660AAF) Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini072310-03.dmp file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe product: Operativsystemet Microsoft® Windows® company: Microsoft Corporation description: NT:s kernel och system The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect, possibly the culprit may be another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time. On Fri 2010-07-23 17:37:16 your computer crashed This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe Bugcheck code: 0xA (0xE8, 0x2, 0x1, 0x806E6A16) Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini072310-02.dmp file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe product: Operativsystemet Microsoft® Windows® company: Microsoft Corporation description: NT:s kernel och system The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect, possibly the culprit may be another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time. On Thu 2010-07-22 22:09:24 your computer crashed This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe Bugcheck code: 0xA (0x824547B, 0x2, 0x0, 0x80660AAF) Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini072310-01.dmp file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe product: Operativsystemet Microsoft® Windows® company: Microsoft Corporation description: NT:s kernel och system The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect, possibly the culprit may be another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time. On Sat 2010-07-17 16:02:06 your computer crashed This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe Bugcheck code: 0xA (0xBA41C000, 0x2, 0x1, 0x806ECAB2) Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini071710-01.dmp file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe product: Operativsystemet Microsoft® Windows® company: Microsoft Corporation description: NT:s kernel och system The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect, possibly the culprit may be another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time. On Fri 2010-07-16 09:38:26 your computer crashed This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe Bugcheck code: 0xA (0xA46F659C, 0x2, 0x1, 0x806ECAB2) Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini071610-01.dmp file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe product: Operativsystemet Microsoft® Windows® company: Microsoft Corporation description: NT:s kernel och system The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect, possibly the culprit may be another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time. On Thu 2010-07-15 02:21:09 your computer crashed This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe Bugcheck code: 0xA (0xE8, 0x2, 0x1, 0x806E6A16) Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini071510-01.dmp file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe product: Operativsystemet Microsoft® Windows® company: Microsoft Corporation description: NT:s kernel och system The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect, possibly the culprit may be another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time. On Tue 2010-07-13 08:00:27 your computer crashed This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe Bugcheck code: 0xA (0x99EADF5C, 0x2, 0x1, 0x806ECAB2) Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini071310-02.dmp file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe product: Operativsystemet Microsoft® Windows® company: Microsoft Corporation description: NT:s kernel och system The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect, possibly the culprit may be another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time. On Tue 2010-07-13 01:39:03 your computer crashed This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe Bugcheck code: 0xCA (0x5, 0x8ACC8030, 0x0, 0x0) Error: PNP_DETECTED_FATAL_ERROR Dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini071310-01.dmp file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe product: Operativsystemet Microsoft® Windows® company: Microsoft Corporation description: NT:s kernel och system The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect, possibly the culprit may be another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time. On Thu 2010-07-08 22:19:03 your computer crashed This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe Bugcheck code: 0xCA (0x5, 0x8ACCF030, 0x0, 0x0) Error: PNP_DETECTED_FATAL_ERROR Dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini070910-01.dmp file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe product: Operativsystemet Microsoft® Windows® company: Microsoft Corporation description: NT:s kernel och system The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect, possibly the culprit may be another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time.

Lets try a couple of basic steps first.

Go to
Start and then to Run
Type in Chkdsk /r Note the space between k and /
Click Enter …It will probably ask if you want to do this on the next reboot…click Y
If the window doesn't shutdown on its own then reboot the system manually. On reboot the system will start the chkdsk operation
This one will take longer then chkdsk /f

Note… there are 5 stages…
It may appear to hang at a certain percent for a hour or more or even back up and go over the same area…this is normal…
DO NOT SHUT YOUR COMPUTER DOWN WHILE CHKDSK IS RUNNING OR YOU CAN HAVE SEVERE PROBLEMS
This can take several hours to complete.
When completed it will boot the system back into windows.

Let me know if this fixes the problem








If the above doesn't work and resolve the issue then move to the next set of instructions.

Go Start and then to Run ("Start Search" in Vista),
Type in: sfc /scannow
Click OK (Enter in Vista).
Have Windows CD/DVD handy.
If System File Checker (sfc) finds any errors, it may ask you for the CD/DVD.
If sfc does not find any errors in Windows XP, it will simply quit, without any message.
In Vista you will receive the following message: "Windows resource protection did not find any integrity violations".

For Vista users ONLY: Navigate to C:\Windows\Logs\CBS folder. You'll see CBS.log file.
Usually, it's pretty big file, so upload it to Flyupload, and post download link.


If you don't have Windows CD….
This applies mostly to Windows XP, since Vista rarely requires use of its DVD while running "sfc"
Note This method will not necessarily work as well, as when using Windows CD, because not always ALL system files are backed up on your hard drive. Also, backed up files may be corrupted as well.

Go Start and then Run
type in regedit and click OK


Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup

You will see various entries Values on the right hand side.

The one we want is called: SourcePath

It probably has an entry pointing to your CD-ROM drive, usually D and that is why it is asking for the XP CD.
All we need to do is change it to: C:
Now, double click the SourcePatch setting and a new box will pop up.
Change the drive letter from your CD drive to your root drive, usually C:
Close Registry Editor.

Now restart your computer and try sfc /scannow again!


Thanks to Broni for the instructions

Well, I can tell you right now that sfc did it's job and then shut down without any message. So it didn't find anything. Right now I'm running checkdisc, but i think somethings wrong. I started it last night and it got to stage 4 pretty fast and then quickly slowed to a halt at 4%. I went to bed, got up and now its still at 4%, 6 hours later. Is this really normal?

Yep it's normal if there are serious issues. According to your post it has now been 8 hours and is it still stuck?

Don't know if it's still stuck. I'm checking the forum from work. I'll know if anythings happened in about 8 hours.

If it is we will continue on and do a sfc /scannow when you are ready. If that doesn't work we may have to do a Repair Installation.
It may be the OS is corrupted or a driver issue.

I ran the sfc before checkdisc and I dont think it found anything. Wont I loose programs and stuff with a repair? Should I try to reset the system to a date before the bsods started? (English is not my primary languege and I dont use an english version of windows so I dont know the correct terms for some things)

Nope the repair under normal situations does not remove any data but just repairs the OS.
Do you have a full version XP installation disk or is it a recovery or upgrade disk?

Its a full version installation disc I guess. I'll have to re-download the service packs, but if it'll fix my computer its worth it.

OK then lets continue and if before you start you want to backup anything let me know and I will give you the steps to be able to get your data without being in windows.

Repair Installation Instructions

· Insert your Windows XP CD in your CD-ROM and then Restart your computer.
· At the first post screen start tapping the Del key to enter System Bios
· Find the Advance Options or Boot Sequence screen.
· You will need to change the boot sequence so that the CDrom is first and the HD is second.
· Press F10 to Save and Exit and then press Enter to accept.
· The system will now reboot
· When the "Press any key to boot from CD" message is displayed on your screen, press a key to start your computer from the Windows XP CD.
· When you see the following message displayed on the Welcome to Setup screen, press ENTER
· To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.
· At this point an option to press R to enter the Recovery Console is displayed. DO NOT SELECT THIS OPTION.

· On the Windows XP Licensing Agreement screen, press F8 to agree to the license agreement.
· Make sure that your current installation of Windows XP is selected and highlighted in the box, and then press the R key to repair Windows XP.
· Follow the instructions on the screen to complete Setup.

Ok, now I know something's wrong. I just got home, turned on the screen and saw that checkdisc is still stuck at stage 4 on 4%. Can I do anything to stop and/or restart the scan at this point? At this rate we wont get any results until christmas.

Restart and try redoing the steps. Something stopped it and I don't know what it was. Let me know what happens.

I restarted and sat with it for a while (to comfort it or something, I don't know) and its at 15% and counting. It might not be faster than a speeding bullet, but at least it's doing something. I'll tell you when it's done.

Yup it finished and booted to windows, cant say I can tell if anything's fixed, but I'll let it run for a while and see if something happens.