help (not sure if this is where my thread belongs)

I have been getting BSOD errors related to bad drivers but have been unable to identify which ones (the malware removal guide replaced qmgr.dll but the problem persists) computer runs at normal speed in safe mode without errors
in normal mode it is only a matter of time before explorer.exe crashes which make it difficult to install any new software
(other symptoms: desktop icons keep refreshing themselves)

any help or fresh ideas to try is appreciated

PC: XP home, Pentium 4, 2G RAM, 4G pagefile, 80G HD
anitvirus: avira (no detections prior to problem)
firewall: sygate
browser: firefox
scan disk: did not find any file corruption or bad sectors on hard drive
driver verifier: identified ctjystk.sys and cdralw2k and I have disabled them via autoruns and their associated windows service but explorer crash problems persist
sfc /scannow: could not complete due to explorer crash in normal mode and could not initiate in safemode
recovery console: could not install due to explorer crash in normal mode and could not install in safemode

RogueKiller (could not install/run in safemode)
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (no detections)
TDSSKiller (could not install/run in safemode)
HitmanPro (could not install/run in safemode)
MGtools (ran and have logs but forum rules says not to spam logs unless requested)

 

Greetings, doggyexe, and welcome to MajorGeeks...

I doubt the Malware Removal gurus will be able to do much if the cleaning programs won't load, but it may be best to let them make that decision. If you do suspect an infection try starting a new thread in that forum and attach whatever logs you can, see what they say.

Meanwhile, can you post a couple of your most recent minidumps here in the Driver Forum? Make sure that your computer is set to save minidumps - the next time your machine crashes navigate to C:\Windows\Minidumps, grab a couple of files, zip them and attach them to your next post. Someone here may be able to then shed some further light on your issues.

 

0x000000c5:
0xAAD75FA0 0x00000000 0x805222ee 0x00000001
0xA5644014 0x00000000 0xf78189e4 0x00000000
0x00000031 0x00000002 0x00000092 0x00000000
0x00000081 0x8966c008 0x00000004 0x00000000
0xe1e5e000 0x00000002 0x00000001 0x8052fc59

 

I have not installed any new drivers/software manually, but some might have updated automatically like java, adobe, etc.

i don't think it is the ram, because I reformatted and it works ok now.

there was probably a service trying to run that could not, I noticed one of the malware removal programs (I think MG tools) added services to my computer which it did not support. But that only explains the explorer crash recently. I still don't know what caused the BSOD previously.

thank you for taking the time to help.

 

MG tools did not cause BSOD, I had that problem before I tried running the tool. It or one of the other 4 caused my explorer.exe to hang and crash due to OS incompatibility.

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anyway I finally figured out how to make the minidump files readable and I have attached them. I apparently lost the old minidumps along with the old system restore points after running MG tools, so these are only the BSOD logs from after running the tools and prior to reformat.
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as for making sure drivers are compatible in the future, how do I do that? One of the flagged drivers belonged to a paid software roxio, I can understand if free 3rd party software had bad drivers, but if even big name 3rd parties like roxio have bad drivers, how do I check before installing them? On other computers I've encountered, the most often bad driver culprit belonged to nivida and not some freeware.


PS on a different topic, I heard gossip that the latest Java is not secure, is there an alternative to Java or a safer older version to roll back to?