Have a XP laptop with some software that I use. This laptop was working well till today (not connected to internet ever since MS stopped support). All of a sudden, XP won’t boot. Tried safe mode and machine goes into infinite loop. The last driver I see getting loaded in safe mode is aswRvrt.sys
Did F8 and stopped the infinite loop and see following error:
Stop: 0x0000007b ( 0xb84cb524, 0xc0000034, 0x00000000, ox00000000 ).
Changed RAM and still same error.
Googling this landed me to this forum. Followed instructions in the post: https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=130459.0
Downloaded OTLPENet.exe and Farbar Recovery Scan Tool, burnt OTLP to CD and have the log file that is attached.
I have disabled System Restore on this machine but have ERUNT backups in a folder on the drive if that is needed to restore registry. However would really like to get the system working without restoring registry to ensure that my programs runs properly.
It is so surprising that these things happen ONLY when we need the machine real bad. Had worked on this machine (with XP) every once in a while without having a real need to get something done. But today, when I needed to get something done, poof! That is life, isn’t it!
Actually is not a surprise.
You can only notice something if you are gonna/want to use a system.
Put a car in a garage and let is stay there for e.g. 10 years.
Go to the garage and try to start it.
It is only then that you notice it won’t start.
But that doesn’t mean the problem wasn’t there many years earlier
Thank you. Was able to reboot machine and it is now running chkdsk but seems to be hung up at 5% on stage 5 of 5. Would you like me to run some other utility as well?
Would have been surprised if it was malware based on the precautions I take including using VMs for browsing etc.
However, I’m still interested to learn what caused this error so that I can take actions to avoid them in future.
as chkdsk was hanging up, I shut down machine and used my XP disk to go to Recovery mode and run chkdsk. It seems to have worked and I can boot to desktop.
however, every re-start causes chkdsk to run and I do not understand why it is running even for partitions on which no error has been found.
To clear the NTFS dirty bit on a drive/partition, try this. Note x: is the drive you want to clear, usually c:
XP- Click on Start, All Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt
Vista & WIndows 7- Click on Start, All Programs, Accessories. Right click on Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator
Type fsutil dirty query x:. This queries the drive, and more than likely it will tell you that it is dirty.
Next, type chkntfs /x x:. The /X tells Windows to NOT check that particular drive on the next reboot. Now manually reboot your computer, it should not do a chkdsk and should take you directly to normal Windows login.
Once Windows has fully loaded, bring up another Command Prompt and enter chkdsk x: /f /r. Reply Y if asked if you want this to happen on the next boot. This should take you through 5 stages of the chkdsk scan on the next boot and will unset that dirty bit. Be patient as this can take an hour or more depending on the size of the hard drive or partition.
Once booted back to Windows, open another Command Prompt and query the dirty bit again by entering fsutil dirty query x: and Windows will confirm that the dirty bit is not set on that drive.
That worked. Since the partitions were not boot partitions, I also went to properties-tools and checked for errors again and now it seems that everything is working fine. Restart does not lead to chkdsk.
Since it is not malware, should I be concerned about HDD going bad perhaps?
