BSOD Straight after Windows XP loader screen.

[ZenTree]

Ignoring the discussions about level of expertise and the correct procedure for what you should have / could have done:

System boots in safe mode, won't in normal.
Odds are drivers - already established.

Have you analysed your crash dumps?

Bluescreenview is worth a look for this, see which drivers are in memory when it crashes. Is it the same drivers each time etc, what are they linked to. Those questions should get you pointed in the right direction.

Also I'm assuming you cloned directly to the new drive. If not and you have a backup image then just go back to that and start again. Or reclone the old hard drive if it's still standing (to a THIRD hard drive in case goes completely wrong) and then see if it loads up in the customer's pc after fixing corruption. If it does, linked to your updates, if doesn't then wasn't linked.

Time consuming yes but if it saves you reinstalling certain annoying and time consuming programs, worth a go.


The system loads in safe mode. You should be able to get it loading in normal mode on the vast majority of repairs, in my experience.

 

[gazza]

I do this all the time and 90% of the time there are no problems at all. Why do it? Because the customer gets their machine back as it was but now working perfectly.

Okay, just because you do it like that doesn't make it right! I totally understand the benefits of cloning customers drives, but not from failing drives that damaged files on it, as per the OP. In this situation I always back up the customers data and do clean install of the OS on a new drive and any programs they have licenses for, this will guarantee that they get there machine back working perfectly!

 

[PcTek9]

Yes, well... then there's denver snow.

ok.

Yah this method works sometimes, but not always.

You could have winded up wasting all this time for nothing.

In the future if you have file system damage, backup the customers DATA

then nuke and pave on a new drive if there is drive damage, or on the same drive if it's just file damage (non hardware related).

Lettuce teach you stuff that works, every time, so you don't lose time.

Your time is valuable. { I on the other hand, throw away some things, and put capacitors in power supplies, lcd's and the like b/c i enjoy it. I'm the decider! }

and further ... the expectation that the drivers would be there, was an incorrect assumption, causing you a greater loss of YOUR time.

We learn from this, that once again, the N&P, with customer data restoration might have been the quickest path to enlightenment.

Further, and finally, something you may not think of... What if:

What if:

The best drivers for the system are not loaded now, but 'workable' slower drivers are?

What if some of the old drivers on the system that should not be there b/c they only work with YOUR computer and not the CUSTOMERS get utilized in the future, or what if some strange and mysterious DLL is still alive in the cavernous gargantuanism of Microsoft Windows that belongs to something related to your system and not their system and it one day conflicts with some software they install and the whole system destabilizes itself into a random state of existentialistic quantum existence???

Anything is possible... If this were not so, I would not have told you so.

I admire your spirit, and I think you will be an awesome technician.
Personally, I quite like you.

 

[stevenamills]

ok.

Lettuce teach you stuff that works, every time, so you don't lose time.

Speech to text, I assume.....

Sorry, man, couldn't resist!

 

[JAG Computers]

Okay, just because you do it like that doesn't make it right! I totally understand the benefits of cloning customers drives, but not from failing drives that damaged files on it, as per the OP. In this situation I always back up the customers data and do clean install of the OS on a new drive and any programs they have licenses for, this will guarantee that they get there machine back working perfectly!

Gazza, you seem to berate others for the solution they provide merely on the basis that you do not like it. It is ok that you state what you do in a situation like this but to berate others for it is unacceptable.

You are not making any friends when you act like this.

smlie4: you are doing fine. Keep looking and you will find the answer.

 

[NeutronTech]

Okay, just because you do it like that doesn't make it right! I totally understand the benefits of cloning customers drives, but not from failing drives that damaged files on it, as per the OP. In this situation I always back up the customers data and do clean install of the OS on a new drive and any programs they have licenses for, this will guarantee that they get there machine back working perfectly!

Just because you use your method doesn't make it right either. Quite frankly, with most things in computer repair, there is no right or wrong method, as long as the results are what was desired. Of course, you can waste time, and some methods take longer than others, but it doesn't make one anymore wrong than the other.

Besides, his customer has proprietary software and may or may not have had the means to reinstall it. When dealing with business customers, sometimes you have to go the long path to complete the job and exceed expectations. Which, I guess would make it the right choice then; wouldn't it?

 

[stevenamills]

smlie4: you are doing fine. Keep looking and you will find the answer.

Yes you are. Trying to resolve this for your client is the right thing.

Try to ignore the self-agrandizing noise here - difficult, but necessary for your sanity.

 

[MobileTechie]

Okay, just because you do it like that doesn't make it right! I totally understand the benefits of cloning customers drives, but not from failing drives that damaged files on it, as per the OP. In this situation I always back up the customers data and do clean install of the OS on a new drive and any programs they have licenses for, this will guarantee that they get there machine back working perfectly!

No, what makes it right is the simple fact that it works.

It does of course depend on what you mean by a "failing drive". What I mean is when there are problems caused by disk errors which are caused by bad sectors. The method I use both secures the data in case of further damage and attempts to repair/remap the bad sectors before the second image is taken. Even some bad sectors remain there is still a very good chance they are not holding data from system-critical files. You might wish to try it before you knock it because it produces a result that the local big box store cannot replicate - they're too busy nuking and paving anything that comes across their desk.

Re: the OP's situation, we don't know if it has damaged files or not or just a damaged and correctable file system or the wrong drivers caused by his actions.

 

[joydivision]

I would just uninstall all the drivers and see what happens. Most obvious thing is you have coppied over damaged drivers but with the way rootkits are these days who knows. The faulty drive may have steered you to a wrong diagnoses.

I realise the drive had to be replaced regardless but it could well be a rookit causing the BSOD rather than the old failing drive. Thats the problem with this job

You have my sympathy as I been having a lot of this sort of thing lately.

 

[brokenmachine]

Hi,

It sounds to me like the problem was a failing hard drive, which you then successfully cloned to the new hard drive. Then you booted the drive up in your tech system... which sounds to me like the problem.

7E BSOD's are caused by drivers. By booting up the drive into Windows with it connected to your system and running windows update, it would've updated the hard drive controller driver in the process (Either through windows update, or when the windows installation detected the new hardware).

When you connected the drive to the clients system, windows no longer had the right driver for their hard drive controller and kicked up a BSOD.

In the future, you can do 1 of 3 things.

1) Don't boot up the drive on your system after the clone.

2) If you do decide to boot up the drive, go to the device manager, go to controllers, and manually update the hard drive controller driver to the generic "standard dual channel pci ide controller" driver before you shut down the pc for the last time.

3) If you can still boot to safe mode on the clients pc (like you said you could) do step 2 on their machine then reboot.

The fact that you took the drive home again and it continued to boot perfectly indicates that this is exactly the problem you occurred and next time you have the right fix for it, which doesn't involve a "Nuke and Pave"

If you want to get really tricky though you can then figure out the registry entries and all the files you need to reset the controller driver remotely. Then you can inject them into the registry using runscanner and bartpe's regedit That's how I do it.

Cheers,
Brokenmachine

 

[smlie4]

Wow some heat in this thread, diet coke has got us all on edge.. lol

There have been some great responses and some clear genius's out there, way beyond my brain knowledge.

I can't believe I oversighted re-cloning the old drive, so simple! Not saying this would have resolved the issue, but it does seems like a logical step early in the process.

For anyone interested in how the job turned out:
When I first diagnosed a faulty hard drive I talked the customer through the various outcomes.

Firstly and primarily I would do my best to clone their drive so they would not suffer any interruption, but as the drive has failed areas it may not be possible and I would have re-install Windows again which would mean all their software would have to installed including any personal settings they had in those programs.

In the end the customer was informed the clone was unsuccessful which they were okay with. I took the machine back and spent 4 hours setting up the computer with the clients software and getting it back into network and a couple of calls to accounting software company. Customer happy wants me back in a couple of months to setup new laptop and secretary also asked for two business cards.

 

[Knightsman]

Honestly, if you clone a drive, and are still worried, uninstall SP3 if it has it, and SP2. Reinstall, run SFC, and you should be fine. Ive never had a problem.

 

[Styxbound]

Several days ago my Dell precision 380 hung up at the loading screen at first boot in the morning; would blue-screen in safe mode. Did chkdsk /r from the recovery console; problem resolved. Later hard drive tests and virus scans found nothing.

I might mention in passing I very rarely have blue-screens when I don't know immediately what the problem is. It's almost always something "iffy" I've done like using a hard drive from another machine.