Hey guys, recently purchased a new pc. I installed vista ultimate 64bit with bsod errors but managed to get the thing installed when I adjust bios to the appropriate settings.. Anywho after a few days and still getting bsod's here and there, I now can't load into windows at all.. When I try to load into safe mode it stops on crcdisk.sys

I did a google and found many hits on the topic but I didn't get any solid answers, some suggested that the drive is on its way out, or maybe it's trying to boot from another disk if you have more than 1 installed. Another suggested it's a driver issue.. Anyone have any experience with this??

I'm running a WD Velociraptor 300GB 10000rpm and windows vista ultimate 64bit.. I also have a WD 500GB hdd installed..

I'd say its unlikely that its drivers - more likely you have either a virus, or a dodgy hdd.

Download Ultimate Boot CD and test RAM and HDD

sounds like probably hard drive maybe, or not.

I doubt it's the hard drive, although it could be

Could be data corruption, try different cables for your cd drive/hard disks?

First thing I thought was hard drive, but second thought maybe not.

Anyone have any experience with this??

Quick-testing the RAM with one pass of Memtest is the first thing I do with a new PC.

Burn the Memtest ISO, boot off it and come back here with the results when it's done:

http://www.memtest.org/

There's really no point speculating about drivers or software until you've confirmed one of your core pieces of hardware (the RAM) is working, since that will affect everything that your system tries to accomplish.


last edited by parabol at 20:18:21 25/Jul/08

user problem (or the harddrive)

well if you're installing it and getting bluescreens that may be cause for concern..... dodgy copy? re-download/buy

So guys is it the Hard drive or something else?

Burn the Memtest ISO, boot off it and come back here with the results when it's done:

Already done this with 0 errors... I just ran "DLG Diagnostic (Western Digital)" through Ultimate Boot CD that mongie suggested with 0 errors too.. There was another option to write zero's to the drive so will give that a shot and try to reinstall windows.

Could be data corruption, try different cables for your cd drive/hard disks?

Havn't tried this as I'm using the brand new cables that came with mobo.

last edited by Martz at 21:57:10 25/Jul/08

Wait? Your copy of Vista blue screened on install?

Might pay to have a look at settings on your mobo to, especially with the raid drivers/settings, I have had trouble with gigabyte mobos in the past with frequent bsods upon install and boot

Turns out easy fix was disabling serial ports.....

Dunno if its related but worth a shot.

I wouldn't mind disabling everything in bios i don't need but nfi what they all do :/

reinstalling vista as we speak, so far no bsod's.

I feel your pain - I spent the best part of the day at work today playing tech support, trying to troubleshoot a BSOD on boot over the phone, great fun. Gotta love Windows.

Did you make a note of the blue screen messages? (bug check ID, extra info numbers, driver name (if you're lucky)) Or, and I'll admit this is a long shot, take a copy of the resulting minidump files from c:\windows\minidump? These can often be very handy at getting an idea of the cause (esp. whether the problem is hardware or software)

Wait? Your copy of Vista blue screened on install?

Yeah, definitely not unheard of - I found out earlier in the week that bug check 7b is Windows' way of saying that you haven't loaded the correct/any RAID drivers when you try to install Windows. An error message would have been nice :/

Wait? Your copy of Vista blue screened on install?

As I just found out then, yes :(

Did you make a note of the blue screen messages? (bug check ID, extra info numbers, driver name (if you're lucky)) Or, and I'll admit this is a long shot, take a copy of the resulting minidump files from c:\windows\minidump? These can often be very handy at getting an idea of the cause (esp. whether the problem is hardware or software)

I'll go through and see if i can get a bsod that stays on the screen long enough for me to note down any info...

I'll go through and see if i can get a bsod that stays on the screen long enough for me to note down any info...

Yeah, the geniuses at Microsoft decided that the proper default is to reboot on BSOD. >:(

Once booted you can turn it off by WindowsKey-Break->Advanced->Startup+Recovery->[] Reboot on system failure

If you can't boot at all then you should be able to disable the automatic reboot by going into the F8 menu prior to booting.

Install the 4gb 64bit vista patch, simple (this is assuming your RAM isn't faulty, and you ran a standard memtest after assembling it)

on the other hand it could be your hard drive

I can't boot into vista. I formatted and I can't even install, I just keep getting bsod errors and can't get any further... I ran the latest memtest on my ram, did multiple passes and I also took mongies suggestion and ran some tests on my hdd with 0 errors.

I bought my dad a pc that I still need to assemble so I will use those parts to test with..

I had a problem installing vista, turns out it didnt like the s3 suspend state on my motherboard. turned the bios back to s1 and it worked. Also could be the hdd smart capability. My guess is it is a bios issue. Reset to defauts reinstall vista and move on from there


Shoddy!

It's ram or hdd I'd say, try a new hdd first.

I'd say its unlikely that its drivers - more likely you have either a virus...

Completely disagree.

A BSOD is caused by something going wrong in kernel space, which is where drivers happen to live. A poorly written driver throwing an unhandled exception, or perhaps dying because it couldn't handle some failure of the underlying hardware it was trying to drive is much more likely than a computer being infected with a virus that penetrates kernel space. Most viruses, as far as I'm aware, are happy living in userland. Especially on Vista which (for all its faults) is hostile even to programs the user installs that try to penetrate kernel space (cf. the drama when all the anti-virus companies had a cry because their dodgy kernel function hooks didn't work any more on Vista).

Update:: I bought a pc for my dad (still in bits) and thought I'd test the the ram from it, only difference being they are 2 x 1GB sticks where as mine are 2 x 2GB sticks.. Exactly same model otherwise.. Anyway, chucked the sticks in and windows vista installed without any bsod's / errors. It's funny cause when I ran memtest there were absolutely no errors?? :/

Its possible that the ram you have is not compatible with that particular mobo in dual channel.

Happened to me on my latest upgrade. Check your mobo manual / ram doco / websites to see if they have compatibility lists.

Also, try just running off a single stick of your 2gb ram. I'll bet each works by itself, but put em together dual channel & they'll die.

Ah bad memories :(

also: pretty sure that my machine didn't die in memtest when I was having the problem. Just kept crashing in 3dmark. This was on an xp machine with 2x1gb ram.

last edited by Any at 23:04:22 26/Jul/08

ah. always test ram sticks individually.

Update:: I bought a pc for my dad (still in bits) and thought I'd test the the ram from it, only difference being they are 2 x 1GB sticks where as mine are 2 x 2GB sticks.. Exactly same model otherwise.. Anyway, chucked the sticks in and windows vista installed without any bsod's / errors. It's funny cause when I ran memtest there were absolutely no errors?? :/

Did you not hear what I said? Install the Vista 64bit 4GB patch, I didn't even have to know you were running 4gb to see the problem.

edit: here's the patch

last edited by shrapse at 17:02:03 27/Jul/08

Did you not hear what I said?

erm, did you not read what I wrote on page 1??

I quote:

I can't boot into vista. I formatted and I can't even install, I just keep getting bsod errors and can't get any further...

I will try the patch and swap the sticks over.. I shouldn't have to even do that though as I'm just lucky I could borrow sticks out of my old mans setup to install vista with. I still suspect something dodgy.

Thanks for the link to patch though..

Also, try just running off a single stick of your 2gb ram. I'll bet each works by itself, but put em together dual channel & they'll die.

Already tried running off one stick but no luck, same errors.