Joined Sep 2017
L5: Journeyman
Forum Thread
MemTest Question
January 5, 2025 at
02:39 PM
Neighbor brought me a 10+ year old E-Machine desktop. Nothing special.
Problem is it boots to Windows and then within a minute or so gives a BSOD with STOP code CRITICAL PROCESS DIED.
I'm fairly certain I could just reinstall Windows and get things up and running but I figured I'd test the memory first.
I can't get MemTest to run. Created two separate bootable USB drives from the Passmark utility. Confirmed both USB drives work properly by using them on my own equipment. When I boot the E-Machines PC to either of the USB drives (they get recognized by BIOS), it just gives me a blinking white cursor. I let it sit overnight just to make sure.
I also disconnected both the hard drive and DVD drive, same results. Any idea what could cause this?
Problem is it boots to Windows and then within a minute or so gives a BSOD with STOP code CRITICAL PROCESS DIED.
I'm fairly certain I could just reinstall Windows and get things up and running but I figured I'd test the memory first.
I can't get MemTest to run. Created two separate bootable USB drives from the Passmark utility. Confirmed both USB drives work properly by using them on my own equipment. When I boot the E-Machines PC to either of the USB drives (they get recognized by BIOS), it just gives me a blinking white cursor. I let it sit overnight just to make sure.
I also disconnected both the hard drive and DVD drive, same results. Any idea what could cause this?
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Scanned the PC, no memory issues.
Pretty sure I'm dealing with either a corrupt Windows file or some sort of virus. Not willing to pull the drive and hook it up to my machine as I have no idea if it's virus-laden and I can't get into Windows to scan for viruses.
I used to use Bart's PE as a bootable environment to handle stuff like this, I see it's discontinued. Quick googling points me to Hiren's BootCD but I see it doesn't support non-UEFI BIOS.
Anyone have any recommendations for a bootable environment that will allow me to scan the drive for viruses?
Any other suggestions are appreciated. Neighbor wants to ensure that any pictures on the drive are saved, otherwise I'd just format and reinstall Windows.
I used to use Bart's PE as a bootable environment to handle stuff like this, I see it's discontinued. Quick googling points me to Hiren's BootCD but I see it doesn't support non-UEFI BIOS.
Just pull the drive and help transfer files using a USB adapter.
If for some reason you were determined to make it function, replacing the drive with a cheap ssd would be the best option. A machine running Windows 7, Vista, or XP shouldn't be connected to the internet.
Just pull the drive and help transfer files using a USB adapter.
If for some reason you were determined to make it function, replacing the drive with a cheap ssd would be the best option. A machine running Windows 7, Vista, or XP shouldn't be connected to the internet.
I pointed out to him that he could buy an identical hard drive for $30. He hasn't gotten back to me yet.
In the meantime, I'd rather boot into some environment where I can scan the drive rather than connecting it to any of my machines. Anyone have suggestions given that my old go-to (BartPE) is decommissioned?
I pointed out to him that he could buy an identical hard drive for $30. He hasn't gotten back to me yet.
In the meantime, I'd rather boot into some environment where I can scan the drive rather than connecting it to any of my machines. Anyone have suggestions given that my old go-to (BartPE) is decommissioned?
It's also worth noting that on some computers there's a setting that controls if it appears like a legacy bios or uefi to the OS. It has it's downsides, but you can make old hardware run Chrome OS Flex. https://www.zdnet.com/article/ins...headaches/
If you look into the bios settings, you may be able to change a setting so that Hiren's will boot. You may also be able to format and partition a bootable flash drive so it uses an MBR partition table instead of GUID/GPT. There's probably some trick that works to get HBCD to load. If nothing else, there are older versions that will work. You also might be able to PXE boot a HBCD image over the network.
If it's virus infested, if may not be worth the time to do anything but reinstall windows leaving user files intact. If you scan for viruses in a PE environment, you generally have to do it again once you boot back to the OS.
Minimum try to back up their files to a 128 GB flash drive.
Problem is it boots to Windows and then within a minute or so gives a BSOD with STOP code CRITICAL PROCESS DIED.
On failing drives it can be more useful to use software like Ultracopier or TerraCopy instead of just drag and drop to copy files as the whole process won't just stop when there an error.
Thanks for the suggestions on getting HBCD to load... Haven't tried yet as I was able to boot to Windows install media and run a repair. Now I can get into Windows successfully.
Turns out it's Windows 10 and trying to run on 6GB of memory. Ha! No viruses. Hard drive scan shows no issues. I guess he's back in business for whatever it is he intends to do with this workhorse!
Thanks again for your help. Cheers!