re: Window Protection Error - You need to Restart your Computer System Halted?
Sunday, January 9, 2005 at 7:51 am
Windows Me Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Bria
(3 messages posted)
Thank you for the quick response and the great information! I will give this a try!
This morning when I turned on my computer I thought everything might be ok as I
got past the Verifying Pool Data and the Windows Splash Screen without the error
coming up but just when I was about to log on to a program up came the lovely error
code....so strange!
On Sunday, January 9, 2005 at 1:43 am, Jack Gulley wrote:
>That is what is classified as a "cold start" problem. It is a hardware problem
>of some sort, not a software or Windows ME problem. While it is possible it will
>go away, it is more likely something that will get worse and fail all together at
>some point.
> The most common causes of this type of problem are memory (RAM) going bad, "soft"
>disk drive errors, disk drive cold start problem and going bad, or a component on
>the system board going bad.
> The first thing you have to do is make sure you have good backups of any critical
>files and documents that are important to you. Either diskette, CD-R or USB memory
>stick. Second, some sort of backup for the whole disk drive if possible.
> You will also need several diskettes to make boot diskettes with for testing.
>First you will need to make a Windows ME startup diskette if you do not have one.
>In Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs icon, Startup Disk tab, make a startup diskette.
>The second diskette you need is a standalone memory test diskette. Go to
>target="_blank"> MemTest86_v3.2 and download their
>program (the "Download - Pre-Compiled Memtest86 v3.2 installable from Windows and
>DOS" link) and run their "install" procedure to make a bootable memory test diskette.
>This special format diskette will boot the system directly into a long (never ending)
>memory test. Verify that both are usable and that the first one gets you to a WinDOS
>A:\ prompt, and the second starts running the memory test. You will have to reboot
>or power off the system to stop it.
> Next you need to try to determine what the source of the problem is and can it
>be fixed. As the system can be started and after a few tries becomes usable, the
>most logical place to start is to check the disk drive for problems. Get it started
>and after about 15 minutes (long enough to warm up good). Go to System Tools and
>run the ScanDisk program. Select Normal mode first and Un-Check the
>option for Automatically correcting errors. You want to see what errors occur and
>write them down. Then run it and see what errors if any are detected, and let it
>correct the errors. If you get errors and don't understand them, post back with
what
>they are (may take time to respond, this may take days to get an idea of what might
>be wrong). If you get too many errors, exit the program and start over with it but
>let it Automatically fix errors in the Normal mode test. (This is just a quick test
>of the file system to look for and correct problems caused by the system being shutdown
>incorrectly.)
> Next, run ScanDisk in Thorough mode. This can take several hours, and you may
>want to run it over night. You will want to reboot the system into Safe Mode first,
>so that it will not keep restarting. But let it run and test the whole disk drive.
>If you can, run it again a second time. The objective is to see if it can find any
>"weak" area's on the disk drive that might be causing problems and bad reads and
>that can be corrected. If you suspect it is a disk drive problem, you might want
>to run a manufactures Quality test on it. (See:
>target="_blank">Disk tests links, depending on the type of drive you have.)
> Now you want to also run the DOS version of ScanDisk on the C: drive. To do this,
>reboot the system with the Windows ME Startup diskette, and at the A:\ prompt, enter
>SCANDISK C: and then let it run through the disk drive again. This version
>will give you a visual representation of the disk drive and its progress. If you
>see any area's marked B for "Bad", you know you have a disk drive problem
>and it might need replacing, or at least reformatted and tested before reloading
>Windows on it.
> Second test that needs to be done, is to boot with and run the extended memory
>test. It could take an hour or more to run at least two full passes through the
tests.
>If any errors are reported, you have bad memory that needs to be replaced.
>Once you have ran it and know it is working, set the system up to run it overnight
>and let it run for at least eight hours or more to do a good test of the memory
and
>basic hardware.
> Up to now, all of the testing has been done with the system hot. The next step
>is to use the boot diskettes to test the system when it is cold. Allow the system
>to set and cool several hours. Over night is best. Insert the boot diskette for
>the memory test again, and power it up so it boots into the memory test directly.
>See if it detects a memory error during the first two passes. You may want to try
>this test several times (like I said, this could take days).
> Next do the same type of cold boot test with the Windows ME startup diskette
and
>then start the SCANDISK C: test and allow it to run and see if it detects errors
>when the disk drive is cold. Repeat if necessary.
> If you get errors that refer to the "boot sector", you may want to correct it
>by booting with the Windows ME startup diskette and running the command FDISK
>/mbr once. And then seeing if the system boots and the boot sector error goes
>away.
> After all of this testing, you should be able to determine what type of problem
>is causing the failure (memory or disk drive) and if ScanDisk was able to fix the
>problem. If it looks like a problem that still shows up when the disk drive is cold,
>it still could be a system board problem. That would then take some more work, and
>the only way to do that would be to test with a different or new disk drive. But
>first you need to get an idea of what is causing the problem before deciding what
>to do next.
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