Blue Screen of Death - Won't Turn On (BSOD)

There must be a million reasons for a PC not starting. I thought I knew quite a few.

This particular PC would boot but, before starting Windows, there was a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). The error message was Process1_Initialization_Failed and the STOP code was 6B.

Again, there are hundreds of these Stop codes and messages but there are websites that list most if not all of them. There are also loads of forums with messages from people who have had these problems before and, hopefully, sorted them. Generally, if you put in a stop code or error message, there are hundreds, if not tens of thousands of people similarly affected. Sadly, a code 6B query gave me less than 5 or 6, none of which were remotely useful.

I tried Safe Mode and it failed. I tried Last Known Good Configuration and it failed.

I tried a Repair installation and it failed - though I am still not sure. The XP system disc found the hard drive, found the right file system and found a correct partition table. It also indicated that it knew which partition held the XP system but instead of offering to repair it, it offered to reformat it! Bad news - since the owner didn't take backups.

Next stop - my trusty UBCD4Win - a portable version of XP that runs from a CD. This is an invaluable tool that I use frequently. It booted slowly but it always does and, when it had loaded, it too showed all the various drives with the right file systems. Superficially, it all looked good. However, when I started the hard drive diagnostics and chose ChkDsk, it immediately showed errors. And the errors kept on coming! Even worse, the errors showed file-names and they weren't only Windows system file-names, many of them were clearly data file-names.

I left it running and asked him to call me when it had finished.

After around 2 hours, it had finished and I rushed round to see what it said. Amazingly, ChkDsk had not only reported the errors but it had also appeared to fix them. I had set it running with the 'correct errors automatically' parameter set but I didn't really expect it to work.

At the end, it reported that it had fixed the Master File Table - a rather important system file. I don't know what had caused to MFT to become corrupted but, at least temporarily, it appeared to be ok. I left the owner with the advice to back up all the data files from the C: drive onto something more secure and, at least, to replace the drive. Although ChkDsk may have repaired the MFT on this occasion, I still didn't know what had caused the problem and, since he ran his business from it, I wouldn't trust it.