Win XP BSOD on startup... how to reinstall?

therascalking · 10-26-2008, 03:03 PM

hey there all,

a firefighter co-worker of mine gave me a laptop to try and fix for him, but as this sort of thing is not normally my specialty, ive been having a bit of trouble with it...

it is an eMachines M5305 laptop running Windows XP Home Edition and has a legit cd-key for it and all... (ask if you need more specs)

the problem is that it gives me a windows stop error (BSOD) following the black Windows loading screen, before it would normally get to the blue logon screen... i can put up the stop error if it is needed later, but as it says it is a problem with the windows system32/registry, im pretty sure that all i need to do is to re-install Windows... i have already reset everything to factory in the BIOS as well... it doesnt matter if the data on it is lost, and in fact, i planned on formatting it when i can... but i cant seem to even get that far...

now, what i figured i should do is simply procure a new Windows XP Home install CD and use that to re-install windows, no? the problem is is that when i tried downloading one from here and using MagicDisk's CD & DVD burner to burn the .ISO file to a CD... it wouldnt work when i booted the laptop from it... it booted, went throw that long list of drivers and stuff, but when it got to the part where it actually launches windows from the disc, Windows threw me another halt error... this time it was: (stop: 0x0000006F, SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED)...

so i was wondering what i should try next? can i get a link to the official Windows XP Home with SP3 disc .iso? or is there even one? is re-installing Windows with a disc even the right thing to try?

any ideas would be greatly appreciated... thanks :] - RK

Mak213 · 10-26-2008, 03:27 PM

Well the first question is this. What version does it say is installed on the COA sticker on teh laptop? If it is a XP SP1 Serial then it will not work with the disc you are trying to use.

I would not trust those links as they are uplaoded by someone. They say they are unmodified but how do you know you can trust them. Unless you have MSDN to TechNET from Microsoft there is no link for the full ISO from Microsoft. They do not offer the download from anywhere else.

My suspecions are correct. That Stop error is cause there is a problem with the CD. It fails to continue the setup cause it is missing some setup files.

So your first real opition will be to see if you can even use the serial. Cause a XP SP1 serial wont work on a SP2 or higher disk. From there you will have to find a better source for the ISO.

therascalking · 10-26-2008, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mak213

Well the first question is this. What version does it say is installed on the COA sticker on teh laptop? If it is a XP SP1 Serial then it will not work with the disc you are trying to use.

yea that would make sense to me... its a little bit older of a laptop, so im sure it is SP1 or SP2 (i wouldve assumed SP3 would be backwards compatible, but w/e)... im not sure how to tell tho, as it is only a series of random numbers and letters on the COA sticker... help?

thanks for the reply tho... :] - RK

Mak213 · 10-26-2008, 03:41 PM

It isnt thta SP3 isnt backward compatible. It is just that when SP2 was released there was a update done to the activation and all that cause SP1 was so highly pirated that it would accept just about any serial. So they made changes with SP2 and basically made it so that SP1 serials wouldnt work with newer disks.

So the COA Sticker doesnt say Windows XP Home anywhere on it? Like at the very top of the sticker?

Like this? At the very top it should say what version of XP ws installed.

therascalking · 10-26-2008, 03:47 PM

yes, mine looks exactly like that... but it just says Windows XP Home Edition, and then emachines underneath it (instead of Dell, like that one)... i dont see anything about "Service Pack" or "SP anything"... on either one... just a bunch of random numbers and the product key... how do i tell? - RK

Mak213 · 10-26-2008, 03:52 PM

If it doesnt have anything i would wager to guess that it could even be Pre-SP1.

therascalking · 10-26-2008, 03:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mak213

If it doesnt have anything i would wager to guess that it could even be Pre-SP1.

hmmm... okay... well then how would i go about formatting and reinstalling Windows then? :' - RK

Mak213 · 10-26-2008, 04:42 PM

Well do you have any XP CD's? If so that would be your best choice. There are a few XP CD's out there that are Pre-SP1 and SP1 which that serial should work with. But if you only have a Post-Sp2 CD something else will have to be thought of.

therascalking · 10-26-2008, 04:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mak213

Well do you have any XP CD's? If so that would be your best choice. There are a few XP CD's out there that are Pre-SP1 and SP1 which that serial should work with. But if you only have a Post-Sp2 CD something else will have to be thought of.

yea, the only one i have is a Win XP Pro SP2 disk, so...
on the bright side tho, i downloaded a Win XP Home SP3 ISO torrent, and used the program it came with to burn it to a disc... and it worked (sort of)...
it booted from the disc, let me format the windows partition, and then was like 47% through reinstalling windows (further then ive gotten so far without BSODs) when the lappy decided to spontaneously shut off... and again when i retried... it WAS on a fabric-covered chair for over an hour tho, so id assume it just has been shutting off because of heat... so im letting it cool down now, and ill try again in a bit...

thanks tho :] - RK

EricB · 10-27-2008, 09:12 PM

Mak213

I know that you really believe this, but I'm telling that is not a true statement except for those old blacklisted vlk keys. I use a sp2 xp discs on sp1 machines all of the time. genuine disc too. I've done it on hundreds of xp sp1 machines

it has to do with what kind of windows disc that you have that determines what serial that each disc will recognize.

therascalking in your case it won't recognize the serial because you are trying to use a retail version of xp on an OEM serial. get you an oem xp disc. oem recognizes more serials than the other discs, but they don't recognize all of them.

sometime you get bsod of death if you have sata drivers set in the wrong mode. do a ram check with memtest86

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