I’ve got an older laptop that my daughter uses for basic browsing / school work. It’s a Dell Inspiron 1525 with Vista Home Basic (32-bit) installed.
Recently it started having problems. It will lock up when trying to load windows. I see a black background with the mouse cursor in the middle, but nothing else. If I try to load windows safemode it gets stuck on loading aswrvrt.sys, and eventually reboots, only to get stuck in Windows again. Occasionally it will actually load the desktop, but after 20-30 secs it locks up and becomes unresponsive.
After reading some threads about the same issue, I’ve run FRST off a USB stick in conjunction with the OTLPENet CD. Log is attached.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Looks like a hardware problem, maybe overheating. Could you ensure all vents are clear
Download the attached Fixlist.txt to the same location as FRST
Run FRST and press Fix
On completion a log will be generated please post that
Then try a normal boot
Thanks for your reply, Essexboy. I wouldn’t doubt overheating has played a part. My daughter has an unfortunate tendency to leave her laptop on, sometimes directly in the sun on her desk.
Regardless, I used your file and have attached the log that was generated.
When I re-booted, I made it to the desktop, where I received a standard “Windows has recovered from an unexpected shutdown” dialog, which I couldn’t close (it grayed out and the mouse got the ‘working’ animation). The HDD LED was on constantly during boot, then after 45-60 secs it went off, and the computer became unresponsive, eventually BSODing and rebooting.
Safe mode still hangs at aswRvrt.sys with the HDD LED solid.
A couple of automatic reboots have happened, with BSODs with references to “Registry file failure” and the same black background with mouse cursor.
The HDD LED was on constantly during boot, then after 45-60 secs it went off, and the computer became unresponsive, eventually BSODing and rebooting.
That may indicate the hard drive is on the way out, was it making a clicking noise ?
OK from the recovery console select the command prompt and type the following command :
chkdsk c: /r
It may take a while to run but on completion try a reboot again
I ran CHKDSK as soon as you replied, but it’s been stuck at 25% during the “verifying file data” stage for several hours now and hasn’t moved. I’ll let it run, since I know CHKDSK can take quite a while. Hopefully I will have some progress by tomorrow.
As for the HDD, I haven’t noticed any clicking sounds or other signs of mechanical wear/failure.
Well, CHKDSK ran overnight, but it didn’t budge from 25%, and I couldn’t get the command prompt to close either. I’ll write off the HDD as dead and move on from here.
Thanks for your assistance, Essexboy. 