inspiron 5481 BSOD installing intel rapid storage driver, now won't boot to anything

[ell]

Hi have a inspiron 5481 with major issues, constant bsod, 4 urgent updates from dell needed, I got the bios installed but when i tried to install intel RST driver for the ssd it bsod in the middle of it. I did mange to run sfc. Things have gone from bad to worse, different bsod codes on every boot now, even trying to access recovery options, can't even boot from usb, (page fault or memory error msg in bsod) bios diagnostics was the only hw test I could run cuz bsod from usb booting, it was fine. ideas? I'm suspecting this optane nvme card.

 

[phaZed]

If you can get into the repair partition or are able to get it to boot ---- and the issue is the driver... you may need to use pnputil and/or dism to remove the RST drivers, then it may boot.

Seeing as you're battling issues that seem beyond "driver only", I would also suspect something else is going on.

 

[ell]

If you can get into the repair partition or are able to get it to boot ---- and the issue is the driver... you may need to use pnputil and/or dism to remove the RST drivers, then it may boot.

Seeing as you're battling issues that seem beyond "driver only", I would also suspect something else is going on.

it randomly will load to the user login, then promptly bsod, yeah you may be right, but I just ran the advanced bios systems tests on hd, video ram etc and they all passed, I need to figure out how to at least boot to safe mode

 

[ell]

ok so now I got this message when trying to boot from windows recovery on usb, something I can tweak in the bios?

 

[Markverhyden]

At this point I'd pull the existing drive, making a backup of course just in case, pop in a new drive re-install the OS, etc to see what happens. If all is good I'd put the old one back in, boot with a OS install stick and see if I can run dism /online /cleanup-image /restore-health if that available. You should also be able to access restore points as well.

 

[mikeroq]

ok so now I got this message when trying to boot from windows recovery on usb, something I can tweak in the bios?

View attachment 13301

Have you tested the memory like with memtest? How much ram does the computer have? Also I have not seen you mention what BSOD codes you are getting?

 

[ell]

What a pain in the butt this one was, I ended up pulling the little Western digital SSD and swapping the memory, still booting from USB winPE drive with a blue screen with memory type issues, nothing in the bios helped so it must be a motherboard issue.

 

[Markverhyden]

What a pain in the butt this one was, I ended up pulling the little Western digital SSD and swapping the memory, still booting from USB winPE drive with a blue screen with memory type issues, nothing in the bios helped so it must be a motherboard issue.

It's been my experience that those type of errors you experienced end up being MB failures. But one still has to do the due diligence in case the customer asks.

 

[ell]

It's been my experience that those type of errors you experienced end up being MB failures. But one still has to do the due diligence in case the customer asks.

Exactly, but a pain none the less

 

[Markverhyden]

Exactly, but a pain none the less

I know. I hated that when I worked at CompUSA. All their repairs were flat rates and those gremlin machines are a huge time sink.