OVERKILL
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OK, good, so that's out of the way.
So we are now at it being some other piece of hardware, or a driver.
How big a USB did you buy?
Windows 11 BSOD
- Thread starter Donald
- Start date
So we are now at it being some other piece of hardware, or a driver.
How big a USB did you buy?
This is what I suggest, after getting important data off.
You know infinitely more than I do and you are likely correct.
I maintain this COULD be an intermittent, transient error.
OP: Is the machine still BSOD at the same frequency?
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
That's where my next step was headed, since we know the RAM is good, I was going to have him run Linux Mint from a USB and see if the system is stable, which will help us determine whether it's another piece of hardware or not.
Ask me to run a SSL trace using GSKSRVR on a z/OS mainframe and format it with IPCS, I can do that and make sense of the trace.
But I have not done much with Windows in many years other than use it. I think I bought licenses for Word, etc maybe through an employee discount. Hate to loose those and be forced to a subscription.
I have an external CD/DVD player.
64GB
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Perfect, OK, follow the instructions here:
https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
To create a Linux Mint LiveUSB.
Boot it, and start using it like you would to make Windows crash. Let's see if that's stable.
It does a BSOD pretty quickly (5 min) if I open and close windows. Less often if I let it alone.
Ok - running on Linux off a USB. Eric Clapton is playing on my external speakers and reading the NYT. No issues yet.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Excellent, thanks for the update!
So what next? I suppose it could still be my hard drive. From Linux I can see the Seagate external drive but I don,'t think I can cee my normal C: drive. I think it's protected by Bitlocker.
But probably something wrong with Windows.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Yeah, the idea is to get you to run Linux for a bit to ensure the system is stable, if it is, then we can be fairly certain that there is nothing wrong with the hardware, which then takes us back to either OS corruption or a driver/software problem.
try to undo bitlocker now the system is still working somewhat. it's done from safe mode, IIRC, so that shouldn't BSOD
From the Microsoft website I created a bootable USB memory stick that allows me to either REPAIR or REINSTALL Windows onto a PC.
Booted it, and clicked REPAIR answered some settings questions, went through Bitlocker and then it seemed to just boot the normal Windows from hard drive. Did not see any msgs about repairing Windows.
Booted it, and clicked REPAIR answered some settings questions, went through Bitlocker and then it seemed to just boot the normal Windows from hard drive. Did not see any msgs about repairing Windows.
So forget about trying to a Windows Repair from bootable USB and just do a Reinstall of Windows from bootable USB?
OVERKILL
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Well, there are a few steps you can take before doing that, as I assume you'd rather not lose the stuff on the computer, right? Unfortunately, a lot of them depend on the system being reasonably stable, which has been a problem.
I assume that your testing with Linux is complete and you feel that it's fine?
Most but not all of my critical files are on a external or my RAID or both. Probably a few on C drive.
On Linux I was happy with how it ran but never accessed the C drive because of Bitlocker. But I know the key for Bitlocker. Is there a CHKDISK or Crystal DiskInfo I can run on the C drive while running Linux? Do I turn off Bitlocker or enter the key?
What I would like to keep on the C drive is my installed copy of Office. Not a subscription. I probably bought it 10 years ago and still have the license key. I wonder if I can download it from Microsoft and use my license key?
The C drive is SSD I believe.
OVERKILL
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Linux should have just prompted you to enter the password for the drive if you tried to access it.
For NTFS volume drive health checking you really want to use Windows. Unfortunately, some of the stuff I'd like you to run (DISM and sfc /scannow) are best run from within Windows. Could you try booting it, opening an administrative command prompt, nothing else, and then running chkdsk /f, reboot, let it run, then doing the same thing, but running sfc /scannow ?
I've never had any luck with windows repair. Usually by the time the issue reaches that point, it's easier and faster to just reimage the computer.
I checked about the non-subscription version of Office, apparently they want you to login to your MS account anyways to download and install non-subscription versions of MS. I'd check it out first before reimaging so you know what to expect.
https://account.microsoft.com/account/
(at the bottom of the webpage "Microsoft Office Resources"
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/previous-versions/microsoft-office-2013
If they were downloaded before, yes i think so.
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