BSOD Out of the "Blue" on Boot

I love my Aspire One that I've had since October.
XP SP3, 1 gig RAM, can't remember processor but it's not bad, 120 HD (I think) from the factory.

But as of yesterday, it crashes on load up. Don't even get very far and then there's a Blue Screen of Death...message has the word "Boot" in it but that's all I can see as it goes by quickly. Does the same thing in Safe Mode. Gets as far as Windows loading screen when I try Last Known Good Config and then goes BSOD then too.

Any thoughts?

I can't remember doing anything special before this that would have set it off. As far as I can recall, it was a Restart...maybe after something hung up...when this first happened. Now cold or hot boot doesn't work.

I'm thinking of using an XP disk to try and Repair the installation (I have an external burner). Or maybe go into Command Prompt. Is so, does anyone know the boot partition repair command? My memory is confusing Vista and XP commands for this. Could the boot manager be the problem? Has anyone else seen this? The machine is so new that I was totally taken aback.

(Of course, I didn't think to burn a recovery disk when I first got it)

Thanks in advance!

 

You didnt tell us which OS are you using. I assume its WinXP and if you look at boot menu [F8] you will find option to turn off automatic restart on error. Report back when you find what error it is. And yes - this is most probably software issue so you missed thread.

 

Sorry about the mis-location. Found a lot of prior BSOD posts under hardware so took a chance that this was the right place. I think I said "XP SP3" in my original post; must have overtyped it.
Will definitely try turning off automatic restart on error, and will update on what I find.
Thank you!

Got to the BSOD with Kyoto's advice.

The error the BSOD gives me is:

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

STOP: 000000ED (0x86B6A2B0, 0xC000009C, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

Would appreciate any advice.

Update: Microsoft says it's a cable error:

If the second parameter (0xbbbbbbbb) of the Stop error is 0xC0000032, the cause of the error is that the file system is damaged. You can try to repair the volume to see whether this resolves the error. If the second parameter is not 0xC0000032, see "Method 2: Check the IDE cable and load Fail-Safe settings" for help.

And then says:

Method 2: Check the IDE cable and load Fail-Safe settings
If your computer uses a UDMA hard disk controller, try these steps. If your computer does not use a UDMA hard disk controller, see the "Next steps" section for help.

* If your UDMA hard disk is connected to the controller with a 40-wire UDMA cable, replace the cable with an 80-wire cable.
* In the BIOS settings for your computer, load the 'Fail-Safe' default settings, and then reactivate the most frequently used options, such as USB Support.

The "Next Steps," of course, don't say much else.

Before I go opening anything up, does anyone know if the Aspire One uses a UDMA cable?

 

Ok its most probably MBR [Master Boot Record] issue. I dont know exactly how PQSERVICE hidden partition works [does it needs MBR or it pulls that info from some other place]. Anyway you can try to press F12 when turn on computer and run Windows Setup / Repair Console in which you will need to type "FIXMBR" and restart after it. If computer does not respond to F12 you may want to check is it D2D bios option ENABLED - if not enable it and try again. If problem still persist you must create WinXP recovery disk and run FIXMBR from there. Than again if problem persist it may lead that HDD cable is damaged or HDD is damaged.

Sry its not F12 but ALT+F10.

 

Kyoto,
You certainly know your Windows!

Alas, F12 didn't give me the Recovery Console option.
And in Setup, D2D was already enabled. I tried disabling the Quick Boot, but got the same crash.

Getting recovery disks now.
Will post back with results in a day or 2.
If it is the cable or the HD, then I'll need to check my warranty to see what Acer can do for me since the system is only 6 or 7 months old.

Thank you again!

 

I edited post but it seems I was late. Anyway its not F12 but ALT+F10.

If that does not work use recovery CD - if you have CD drive, if not try this one - its pain but only thing that can really help...

http://forums.msiwind.net/windows/msi-wind-nlite-tutorial-and-usb-flash-drive-install-t1337.html

 

boot from an XP CD using an extertal burner..... go to repair using recovery console. run a chkdsk to drive C: . If the corruption is not so severe, then there's a chance that windows can still fix it.

 

Re: BSOD Out of the "Blue" on Boot--FIXED

Tamrac and Kyoto--
You gentlemen are amazing!

ALT+F10 got me to the Recovery Console, but it kept kicking out any of my XP disks.

I used some disk utils and it seems like both the MBR and the HD structure were messed up--it saw the primary partition, but didn't recognize that it was NTFS.
None of the util include disk surface scans and MBR creation worked.

I then booted from an XP disk, and the Repair option worked and took me to DOS.
On CHKDSK it said the drive seemed fine so there was no need to check it (I'd never seen that before!).
I told it to FIXMBR and it said there was something wrong with my configuration, but I could go ahead if I wanted. So, of course, at that point I did, and it said MBR was repaired.
But on boot in Safe Mode, it went right back to the same BSOD stop.

So, I went back to the Recovery Console from the XP disk, and told it to CHKDSK with the /p switch.
It ran and found an error!

And now it boots and runs just fine!!!

(I will now make a recovery disk, a clone, and an image)

Thank you so much for both your expertise and for responding so promptly!

 

Truly strange coz chkdsk /p is diagnostic only without repair. Anyway I am glad you sorted yours problem.