Ok folks, I need some advice
My daughter has a fairly new laptop, less than a year old. I tried removing a virus from it and now it constantly reboots. It's a windows 7 machine, I restored to factory settings, but now it just boots up, says it's starting windows and then shows this screen....
any ideas?
Blue screen is never a good sign.. since it's less then a year old.. is it still under warranty?
You may need to use the recovery disc and the command line to fix this. There is some information here:
http://www.faultwire.com/solutions-fatal_error/DRIVER-IRQL-NOT-LESS-OR-EQUAL-0x000000D1- (http://www.faultwire.com/solutions-fatal_error/DRIVER-IRQL-NOT-LESS-OR-EQUAL-0x000000D1-)*1210.html?order=votes
I think a system recovery may be that answer. I hope you have the disks.
Try bringing the machine up in 'Safe Mode' - before the Windows logo appears - press F8 then choose safe mode without network. That may allow you to poke around a bit more, and check out event logs.
DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL generally has to do with either:
a) a defective driver
b) a defective hardware device
For example, on my old machine I had a slightly malfunctioning network port on the motherboard. I disabled it and installed a new NIC and the error went away. It's quite possible that removing the virus corrupted a driver. I'll agree with what people are saying, if you can do a full windows restore and then re-update to current patch levels you could be ok. Hopefully it's just a bad driver.
EDIT: A quick google search turns up quite a few people with similar issues, looks like it has something to do with hard drives, check out this google search:
http://www.google.ca/search?q=1astor.sys (http://www.google.ca/search?q=1astor.sys)
Good Luck Rick, I think the Links Joe posted might lead you in the direction of the problem, but probably if you can restore the Laptop from recovery disks might be the best. Maybe you should check with your friends at Techline and see if they have some ideas also.
Thanks guys. The computers now don't come with recovery discs... ugh! I will check out those links. Thanks.
Quote from: moyer777 on March 29, 2011, 08:12:32 AM
Thanks guys. The computers now don't come with recovery discs... ugh! I will check out those links. Thanks.
If they don't come with a recovery disc there is generally a small partition on the hard drive that holds the recovery media. What kind of laptop is it? With Dells you usually hold down F8 or something on boot and it loads the recovery media.
Like others have said, you may need to do a recovery or reinstall of windows. Can you go back to a previous point on the machine? Does Win 7 still do that?? Still could even be a hardware problem too, but I'm guessing it isn't that.
yeah, I tried all that stuff before asking. Looks like a wipe clean and start over issue. My buds at the local computer store are going to help, I just called. I have the code for windows 7 so we can just reinstall it all. This all started with that malware virus... ugh.
That's why I don't use the Windows OS anymore for production machines, only on my HTPCs. Always had to fix it every so often.
Very happy user of Ubuntu Linux and Mac OS X now.
I hope you can get it fixed without much data loss.
Quote from: billybob476 on March 29, 2011, 08:14:37 AM
Quote from: moyer777 on March 29, 2011, 08:12:32 AM
Thanks guys. The computers now don't come with recovery discs... ugh! I will check out those links. Thanks.
If they don't come with a recovery disc there is generally a small partition on the hard drive that holds the recovery media. What kind of laptop is it? With Dells you usually hold down F8 or something on boot and it loads the recovery media.
That partition never works I've found every time I get a blue screen of death like that. Hopefully you can get it fixed Rick!
King
Quote from: moyer777 on March 29, 2011, 09:26:00 AM
yeah, I tried all that stuff before asking. Looks like a wipe clean and start over issue. My buds at the local computer store are going to help, I just called. I have the code for windows 7 so we can just reinstall it all. This all started with that malware virus... ugh.
Ric, there is another trick. Go into the bios and select your optical drive to be the first to boot and put in the CD for windows. Once it boots from DVD, you can get it into the repair mode or even safe mode at times. If you can get it into safe mode, you can fix the problem. Worse case, you can use the repair mode of the Win 7 DVD to fix the problems directly.
Quote from: moyer777 on March 29, 2011, 08:12:32 AM
Thanks guys. The computers now don't come with recovery discs... ugh! I will check out those links. Thanks.
Recovery disks and non-PDF instruction manuals were some of the items they dropped when trying to make computers cheaper ... or so they said. I think it was just them being jerks. After you resolve the issue, you can use the backup features in Win 7 to create your own personal restore disks.
I usually build a restore disk right after I fully setup a system, get all the patches, and the sofware that I wanted on the system. It really is a pain and can take a few CDs or DVDs, but it's really worth it.
I'd also suggest you download Windows Security Essentials. It's a free antivirus put out and maintained by microsoft to work seamlessly with their OS. They are very good at protecting the system, but don't include many of the free Microsoft programs that aid your computer because of possible monopoly charges or something.
Thanks X. Yeah, I kind of beat myself up for not making those restore discs now.
Quote from: X on March 29, 2011, 11:03:50 AM
Quote from: moyer777 on March 29, 2011, 08:12:32 AM
Thanks guys. The computers now don't come with recovery discs... ugh! I will check out those links. Thanks.
Recovery disks and non-PDF instruction manuals were some of the items they dropped when trying to make computers cheaper ... or so they said. I think it was just them being jerks. After you resolve the issue, you can use the backup features in Win 7 to create your own personal restore disks.
I usually build a restore disk right after I fully setup a system, get all the patches, and the sofware that I wanted on the system. It really is a pain and can take a few CDs or DVDs, but it's really worth it.
I'd also suggest you download Windows Security Essentials. It's a free antivirus put out and maintained by microsoft to work seamlessly with their OS. They are very good at protecting the system, but don't include many of the free Microsoft programs that aid your computer because of possible monopoly charges or something.
I have everyone here running Windows Security, definitely has kept us out of trouble. I'll probably switch back around here soon.
King
Dell customer service was helpful. They are sending the windows 7 discs for me to restore the machine. Phew. Thanks everyone.
:cheering :cheering
Got the cds next day air! They are in my hot little hands.
But did they work?
Here's hoping...
Well, the fresh install of Windows 7 and all the other goodies has worked without one glitch. We shall see how it all goes when Catherine gets back from her grandparents house.
Me thinks Catherine owes Dad a big daughterly kiss! Not that you need an excuse.
V
Glad everything worked out Rick
yeah, I was kind of surprised, but I guess I shouldn't be. It wasn't hard, just took some time.
I'm glad it worked out for you. :)
Did you/she lose much in the way of data?
Great news Rick. Like Feathers said, hope she didn't lose too much data.
I sell computers at work so I have heard of this happening quite a few times. And yeah, they don't come with the discs like they used to. I always tell folks if you don't have us do the set up here for you PLEASE don't forget to make your recovery disks!!!! And don't forget a backup external hard drive. If you find them on sale you can get them pretty cheap. I hope it all works out!
or even better then backin up to a HD...
http://www.carbonite.com/ (http://www.carbonite.com/)
(also good Star Wars reference)
yeah, we had everything backed up, her itunes music, school data and pictures. phew!
A lot of the time it is system file errors like in Rick's case that cause the problems. It is very rare to have a physical hard drive failure these days. I always partition my drives if only using a single drive so that all data is kept separate to the OS so if need be that partition can be wiped and the OS reinstalled without losing any data.