Seemingly Unique BSOD

I've had and dealt with the dreaded Blue Screen before. Normally my computer allows me back in after it and I can quickly fix whatever wrong occured. Recently though my father-in-law's computer was going the way of ol' yeller (it was dying). Had he brought it to my attention earlier it would have been easy for me to fix I believe.

I'll try to go through this with as much detail as possible. The initial problem was that programs would crash, it would reboot, programs that were uninstalled were claiming to be having errors. Basically lots of rebooting, BSOD, error warnings, and corrupted files. First thing I TRIED doing was salvaging as many of the files he wanted saved onto another HDD, harder than it should have been as every 10-30 minutes into transferring it would crash. I kept at it though and got over half the files before it suddenly stopped letting me transfer any and then just crashed instantly once I tried to move/copy any files.

With as many files saved as I could get I looked at the programs first and tried to uninstall the ones that it said it was having issues with. Wouldn't let me uninstall anything. I checked, I don't remember why, to see if his HDD was defragged at all. Not once since he purchased it about 3-5 years ago. I spent some time cleaning that up and oddly enough (at this point the computer staying on for 2 hours was odd ehe) it stayed on for most of it and only crashed maybe 3 times.

I then checked the registry with Registry First Aid Plat. It found several thousand errors and RFA insisted (as in it was in the "safe to delete" bin) that certain files were safe to delete, so I did. The computer SEEMED to be running better and I was continuing to run registry repair on it when it hit a Blue Screen. I restarted, ho-humming about it at this point and started RFA again and tried to do it again, for it to crash... again. Now Windows starts to load and it asks me if I want to start in various Safe Modes, From Last Known Good Config., or Normally. All three cause a BSOD with REGISTRY_ERROR or something about NONPAGED_IN_A_PAGED_AREA (or something to that affect ehe).

As I've said we could just wipe it and reinstall Windows but he has at least 30Gs more of important videos (he needs to back those up or burn them to DVD) that we want to retrieve. I'm not worried about anything else on there.
I'm not the most tech savvy guy out there and I've checked everything I could think of and been searching internet and friends and pros for as much help as I can get for about a week now. I managed to stumble upon this website for an unrelated issue and saw people getting good, intelligent, and quick answers to their problems and they most seemed to have been resolved. I looked around some but couldn't find a situation similar.
ANY help would be appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

 

Errr... anyone? Please...?

 

Is it two partition hard drive?The videos is on D partition,right?If this is the case you can format and install XP without problems.BUT,if videos are on C drive,well we have a problem.I would recommend repair XP,but you need install CD.

http://icrontic.com/articles/repair_windows_xp

See this.GOOD LUCK.

Goran

 

There are a few ways, without losing data.
As Goran says , a repair option with the necessary cd, is one
If you don't have the CD................
One way, is to remove his hard drive, and connect it to another pc as a slave drive. Then you can copy the data to the other pc, and save it to cd/dvd, from there.
You could use a Free Live Linux CD (download an iso file, and burn to CD )

http://www.knoppix.org/
With this you can run the linux from the cd to copy/transfer files.

 

Thank you very very much, I'll try these and let you know what happens.

 

I was going to suggest booting to a CD also, but instead of a Linux CD like Knoppix, I was thinking a PE CD (UBCD4Win for example) would be good too. It has built in copying tools, buring tools, and file management stuff all in a bootable, familiar Windows-like environment. I've used the UBCD4Win many times to rescue data from non-booting drives....

hd2k

 

Yes , as Hopperdave says, UBCD is a very useful free download, too.

 

Ah, I've used Ultimate Boot before but mostly used it for MemTest and a few other features. Checking Google, it looks like UBCD4Win is different, I'll check it out, seeing as how my in-law can't find his CD (he claims he has it somewhere ehe) and I the only other PC (on my LT atm) I have readily available won't hook up to his properly since it's in pieces to be upgraded.

Thank you again to all of you for the great answers, sometimes I forgot the easy routes and I always assume it's going to be the hard path.

 

I have not tried this , myself, but it is a hard drive "repair" tool, and it might just help, if you have no other alternative- read the page first, and decide from there.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/HDD_Scan_and_Restoration_Program_d4330.html

 

Okay, he officially does NOT have the XP CD for this. It's a Vaio and they gave him some little toy CD. UBCD4Win looks very nice but it too requires a XP CD, and Vaio's version doesn't count. I'm gonna see if I can just use an old version of XP32bit I have... if I can find it.

 

Alright, thank you all for your assistance. I'm just going to tell him he's f-ed and reinstall windows on it. Only reasons I really wanted them off was because they were home movie type, not replacable really.

 

Yeah, you do need the XP install CD to make the UBCD4Win. Home or Pro is OK; it doesn't matter. For best results, do NOT use an OEM disc (like from Dell or HP or Sony, etc). I tried using a Dell XP CD the first UBCD4Win I made and I ended up wasting alot of time. After 3 tries and different errors and a CD that didn't work right, I finally used a factory CD and all went smooth the first time out...

hd2k

BTW- what's with all these people losing their XP installation CD's? If I had a nickel for every post I've read where someone has misplaced or can't find or flat out lost the Windows disc, I'd have ALOT of nickels!

 

It's a Vaio, I think I forgot to mention that. And it normally uses these three CDs and... yeah. It won't matter if I use a version of XP that's not on it right? I checked their FAQs but it doesn't say and I didn't find much relevance in their forums. I have multiple Install CDs of XP (Pro32/64, Home, Media, few others) but just haven't gotten a chance to test them. Going to try tonight either way hopefully.

And if I had a penny for everytime people brought me a PC when all that's wrong with it is the power switch is turned to "off" (or similar very stupid problems), I could buy Bill Gates.

 

If you try the Widows repair, from a cd, you should not lose the data- you know, When you receive the "Welcome to Setup" message, press R to start the Recovery Console.

 

I might have tried it wrong, I'll try it again.

Also, after getting a XP CD that works and running it, UCD4Win wouldn't even build. For some reason everything installs like normal but the main .exe file is nowhere to be found. I'm scratching my head. What's even worse is after I get this one working, I got a laptop repair. I'm not a computer guy really, not anywhere near my field. "Home Tech" is what my friends call it. I think really they realize I an deal with the headache better than them.

 

Since you have lots of Windows install cds,
install windows to another folder in the partition (don't format) and run the pc from there. you have 30 days to copy off athe data.
Then wipe and clean install.

 

Update: The Vaio option of recovering without deleting files is greyed out.
Been trying UCD4Win and BertPE and several other type files. UBCD4Win actually keeps crashing "Tried to Write to a Read Only Area" Do I need CD-RW? Or is the HDD Read-Only somewhere?

I think I understand what you mean, you mean install a second OS almost like normal except don't write over the normal OS, right? I didn't think that would give access to files on the other OS, only the one. Or is it different, if so, what do I need to do?

Thank you again for all your replies, many of you have given good ideas and lots of support. I just wish this PC wasn't so... well... let's just say that I know several very choice words to describe this computer.
I'll try the dual OS and check back Friday/Saturday for any last attempt ideas. If nothing works I'll tell him he's out of luck and that we have to reformat it. *shrug* Maybe it'll teach him to back up his important files, or take care of his computer, or to just buy a new computer instead of using the same one for so long. Part of this is to get the important files back like the home movies, but mostly this has turned into a matter of honor and pride. Man over machine and such, you know? We'll see.

 

Pull the drive, set jumpers to slave, install on another desktop and access it with that operating system, but that would be a last resort. I would try a linux live cd and see what i could get that way, then do a repair with the alternative windows cd as long as the windows version, (Home, Pro), service packs, (SP1, SP2), were the same on the hard drive as on the installation/repair cd. Hope you get them all, and then show him how to do backups, even if it is with ntbackup.
Bug

 

As I understand it the important thing is to recover matey's data. Repairing the Vaio installation is secondary.

If you install any NTFS capable system i.e. win2k, XP or Vista - you will be able to read/write all the files in the old system.

This means that you can copy the data, use the comms links or dvd writer and possibly (only possibly) repair the original installation.

This is the Microsoft preferred method.

You need to install as normal, except two things.
Firstly answer no to the question 'format'
Secondly choose a new folder (it will be created ) to install the second copy to. You can call this windows2, twindows or whatever.

Setup will then install and rewrite the boot information to point to the new installation so that when you reboot you will open in the new inatallation.
Of course to 'stick' it will need activation after 30 days.

I would suggest that in your situation the best course is copy the data and then use the Sony recovery to restore the laptop to factory state.

 

Thank you for promt reply.
Okay, just tried (Pulling an all nighter it seems). It started to work, then the computer crashed, not a BSOD though. I thought it was a restart but it did something, or I suppose I might have. Both OSes are gone, the drive isn't formatted, nor is it letting me (again, may be my fault there) and hits an error of some kind every time I start to install a new OS (I lost the data anyways *shrug*). Is it possible that the HDD is bad? I -have- seen that before but it wasn't quite like this. I'm going to try UCD and fomatting from there.

Thank you again everyone.

 

Two reasons it might not have worked.

One the hard drive was so full you didn't have enough space to install Windows again. It is inadvisable to let the drive get this full.

Second it sometimes helps to run check disk on a drive before installation if you get installation errors.

 

It is possible that the hard drive is faulty, but the data is not lost, until it actually dies.
Have you a spare hard drive ?- old one would do, -Set up any XP, run as master in this computer, and slave the old drive, or, Find someone with a working pc, and try it as a slave, as I suggested earlier- you could still get the data off - as Studiot explained, with the copying to a new folder on the same partition, so you can access it off another hard drive.

 

And it is working!!

Hahaha, I forgot to save his music and pictures but I got the home movies and images which is what I cared about so His PC is up and running so that's one down, thank you all for your great help!!
I have a laptop to work on now and if I get stuck at least I'll know a group that can and will help, finally. Again, thank you.