BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH

[Bowlzy]

Hi everyone,

I have a Dell Dimension 3000 desktop computer, I bought it almost 4 yrs ago and therefore my warranty has run out. This means that I have to pay to get the chance to talk to a human on the phone, or over the internet help, BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE!.

Anyway, I have recently tried to upgrade my RAM and I bought 2 1 GB to replace my one 512MB, my motherboard can take it and it worked fine for about a month, suddenly it stopped working and I get the blue screen of death. with an error code STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF8C19524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000).

Previous to the blue screen I get a message:

System Memory has changed

Diskette drive 0 seek failure

Primary drive 1 not found

Press F1 to continue or F2 to go to setup

 

I have tried going into set up and there is literally nothing I can do to change the situation.

I have tried swithcing the RAM cards in all possible orders and I have even put the old one back in (IN DIFFERENT ORDERS AS WELL).

 

I am completely lost and I really don't want to lose all my memory unnecessarily.

 

Thanks for your help

Bowlzy

[Tootech]

First thought is that your hard drive may be faulty.

 

The stop error 7b indicates a possible drive fault - here's the Microsoft link

 

Advanced troubleshooting for "Stop 0x0000007B" errors in Windows XP, look down to Other Issues

 

Also, this message

 

Primary drive 1 not found

 

indicates that the system cannot see your hard drive.

 

Have you installed any software or updates before it happened?

 

Also, did your system crash and not restart properly, or did it just not start up one day?

 

We will try to do some troubleshooting.

 

Power off at the mains socket.

 

Put back your original memory for now - you know that is reliable.

 

Take out the BIOS battery, leave it a couple of minutes, refit and power up, and into the BIOS.

 

Can you see your hard drive in the list of drives?

 

If you can't, power off again, pull off your drive cables - comms and power, power on, BIOS again and have another look.

 

Next, if you can see it, in the Dell BIOS make sure it is set to first boot device, save and exit.

 

Will it boot now?

 

A lot of the Dell machines have diagnostics available in the BIOS, I've had a look in the manual and can't see any in your BIOS - can you confirm that.

 

On the downside, if you cannot see the drive in the BIOS, try swapping to another IDE port if there is one and have another go. If you still cannot see it your drive is faulty.

[Bowlzy]

stupid question but the BIOS battery, is this the big batery that is directly linked to the power cable?

[Bowlzy]

OK,

I've disconnect the battery and connected it again and the problem stil persists. When in the setup I look at 'Drive Configuration' and I can see,

Diskette drive A: 3.5 inch 1.44MB

Primary master Drive.......Hard Drive

Primary slave drive..........Unknown device

Secondary Master Drive..CD Rom Device

Secondary Slave Device..OFF

 

IDE Drive UDMA..............On

 

When I look into Hard-Disk Drive sequence:

1.System BIOS boot devices

2.USB device (not installed)

 

When I look into boot sequence:

1.Hard-Disk Drive C:

2. IDE CD-ROM Device

 

When I set up the boot sequence for the IDE CD-ROM Device to boot first it still wont boot.

As you found, I don't have any diagnostics in my BIOS, just a report feature.

 

In regards to the other IDE port, what does it look like?

 

Thanks by the way

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Ok make sure to check the the ribbon cable to both the board and the hard drive is fully pushed home as you may have inadvertently dislodged it while fitting the memory, only a fraction is enough to result in an operating system or drive not found error.

[Tootech]

Thanks for the info - your hard drive is picked up in the BIOS in some shape or form - thats what this means.

 

Primary Master Drive - Hard Drive

 

We need to know if your BIOS does recognise the drive type - name and model.

 

Also, your boot order is correct - mostly it should be as you have said

 

When I look into boot sequence:

1.Hard-Disk Drive C:

2. IDE CD-ROM Device

 

Next step for me should be a hard drive check - if you can post your hard drive make we can point you in the direction of a diagnostics program.

 

Let us know if your BIOS recognises the drive.

[Bowlzy]

Still a Problem

 

I ensured that all of the cables are pushed in all the way and the problem still persists,

 

'Diskette Drive 0 seek failure

[Bowlzy]

It is recognising it, It recognises that it is a samsung model with a code after it (I assume this will be the correct code, the same as the hard drive)

 

The Model of my Hard Drive is: SAMSUNG SP0802N

 

I did have some hard drive issues before hand, well, I had a virus and my norton protection (2006 version) could not remove it, therefore when it cam to the end of its subscription I tried to uninstall norton and update it, however it wouldn't uninstall and I wasn't able to install another protection software, so I am aware that there could still be remnants of a virus.

 

Could this be a factor in why it isn't being recognised?

Edited February 20, 2009 by Bowlzy

[Plastic Nev]

Perhaps a little late but the BIOS battery that Tootech asked you to remove, is around twenty millimetres (3/4 inch) in diameter and looks like a large watch battery, it is located on your mother board. Have a look at this site for more help on it and how to remove it, as some fittings are tricky to undo.

Replacing the Motherboard Battery | Hardware Secrets

[Tootech]

Here is a link to the Samsung test utility.

 

SAMSUNG Hard Disk Drive - support - utilities

 

Download the best one for you - the ISO is probably best, burn it to CD, boot from it and run the tests. It will check the health of your drive.

 

That bypasses all Windows software and checks your drive.

 

If you look at the link, scroll down, and look at the Self Diagnostic, follow the instructions there.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Also as an aside the diskette seek failure means the bios is looking for boot files from the floppy drive which I'm guessing you don't have one attached.

 

Just disable the option to boot from floppy in the bios to stop the error message from appearing.

[Bowlzy]

Thanks for the help, once again.

My computer doesnt seem to boot the cd files, they are zipped and wI m wondering whether that is an issue.....

Tell you what, Whilst I'm writing this message, i'll try unzipping them and see if that works.

[Bowlzy]

Thanks Plastic Nev, No luck however

[Bowlzy]

Unzipping it didn't work! Now I really am stuck if the diag isn't working

[Tootech]

When you unzip you should get an ISO file.

 

You need to use your burning program to write it as an image - not just burn it to CD.

 

If you need help with that, let us know which CD burning program you use.