BSOD on my Laptop. Grrr...

Well, my dad seems to have messed up his laptop again and I have no idea how he did it. He says that he left it ontop of a book, which probably got real hot since he left the house for 12+ hours with the laptop running. Anyway now that he returned he said that he attempted to turn on his computer (I guess it was off when he came back? or on sleep mode he doesnt know the difference) and when he did so the computer comes on, goes through the Windows XP (professional I think) and then gets to a black screen where the arrow is displayed just before the sign on screen appears. BUT! Low and behold, instead of a sign on screen, I get the BSOD flashing very quickly, before I can even make out a word and then the computer restarts and goes through the process all over again. Now, the laptop at start up gives me two options, I get the option to his Esc (even though it doesnt tell me this) and that gets me somehow to choosing loading up on safe mode etc etc. the F2 option which brings up those BIOS settings. And the F12 option which has something to do with booting up using a certain drives (prolly for use with a wipe? I dunno). Anyway I tried all the modes, and it seems like the mode to start using the last known good config gets me the farthest, it gets me through the sign up screen (which is automatic because there is only an admin so there is no actual choice of who to sign on as) and to the desktop, BUT! the laptop shows the BSOD before I can even click start. Safe mode attempts to load the desktop because I can see the top and bottom "Safe Mode" bars but the desktop never loads in safe mode and hits the BSOD.

I am wondering how can I atleast get this so called BSOD to last on my laptop so I can read it for further troubleshooting, I know there is some option called automatic restart on failure I believe but I do not know how to turn it off, it is not in BIOS config and that is basically the only thing I can get to before the BSOD takes over.

I have a Toshiba Satellite M35X-S161. It has Windows XP on it, the bottom says home but the guy who sold it to us put professional on the other ones so this could be pro. I think it may have extra ram and a diff cpu than original but that should be it. But shit I don't know alot about PCs I just know enough to do what I need to do..

Thanks for the help.
-Ant

 

He cant get that far so that is useless right now. I would say you should stick the windows cd in and do a repair and see where that takes you.
-the new tech guy

 

If you can get to the F8 Screen, You can Try " Last Known Good Configuration "

 

Tape F8 for the "advanced options menu" (or press esc, if that brings up a menu labled "advanced options" on your comp- it kind of sounds like it does, according to the post, but you might be talking about a menu that says "we apologize but windows did not start...")

If it does, see if you have a option that says "disable automatic restard on system failure". If you do, select it, and see what the blue screen says. Relevent info is usually in the title or in the "technical info", most useful is the first "0x" stop code, and any file names mentioned, but the more info the better.

If this option isn't available, please let us know if you have a windows disk available.

Good luck!

 

The New Tech Guy - I will look for his CD and try that...

Hardmarkerin - I know what screen you are talking about, I mentioned that in my post. Instead of F8 I have to press Esc... and that only gets me to the background for about 2-3 seconds before I get the BSOD again.

Gecks - Again, F8 does nothing. Instead I have to press Esc a bunch of times because I don't know when I am supposed to hit it.

As I said I only get to the blue welcome screen when it restarts, then I get the BSOD and a restart. I read somewhere that disabling the auto restart option would stop the BSOD problem.

Thank you for your suggestions.

 

Alright go for it . If you dont know how to run the repair let me know and i will give a link to ms knowledge base that explains it.
-the new tech guy

 

Aiight. Let me get that site for future reference, please. Thanks.

 

Here ya go!
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/tips/doug92.mspx
let us know if this helped you
-the new tech guy