BSoD in Windows 7

[Kaylyn]

Pretty much what it says on the can.

It just started last night. The only thing I did yesterday was install the beta for Scrivener for Windows (a writing tool previously made for Mac only) before going to work. I was playing with the program when I had a free moment at work, and the laptop suddenly crashed to blue screen. It started back up fine, and crashed again later after having the program up for a while. This happened a couple more times. I got to leave work early and came home, it crashed again, and now Windows won't even boot up properly without blue-screening. It boots up in Safe Mode, and I tried running a system restore to a few days ago before I noticed any problems, and it didn't work. I'm currently attempting a system restore to the earliest date in my list, which is October 2. (And it just finished...and didn't work.)

The only other things of note are that I usually sleep/hibernate the laptop, giving it a restart once in a while. Also, the trial of TrendMicro that came with it (it's only a couple of months old) just expired. It's Windows 7 Home Premium, 64 bit.

Also, I was never able to make the recovery discs it kept nagging me about. I'd start the procedure, it would build the .iso's, ask for a disc then it would spit out whatever discs I put in there, saying an error occured. So I currently have no way of reinstalling Windows, as I'd have to either buy the OS separately or otherwise obtain it (I have a key, so if I could find a copy somehow online that was safe, it wouldn't be illegal for me).

Please help! NaNoWriMo is starting in a few days and I need my laptop! If you need more info, just let me know what you need.

(Edit: I've also run chkdsk /f and chkdsk /r in safe mode (the second in elevated command mode or whatever it's called). Memory scans...no problems. I also ran a command our local computer guy mentioned...can't remember what it was called though, but it also showed no problems.)

[bsaana]

If this suddenly started happening after installing a beta program - uninstall it first and reboot. It is likely that it could be causing a conflict with some other program or process running on it.

[Kaylyn]

Already done. Still having the same issues.

[Kaylyn]

Wow. I...fixed it. And I have no idea how.

I downloaded some Western Digital thing and burned it to CD. I stuck it in my laptop's DVD drive, said, "fuck it, let's see what this does"...and...somehow I managed to restore it to factory defaults.

I saved my novel, which was really all that truly mattered, so...yay! The other stuff is replaceable.

[technical.angel]

So you did get the recovery disks made?

[Kaylyn]

Yes! After I got over the fit of hysterical giggles at actually managing to somehow recover it to factory settings without a recovery partition or discs, I started the recovery disc creator. This time it worked! And now Scrivener works flawlessly...well, as flawlessly as a beta program can work. The program itself has plenty of bugs, but no more Windows crashes. So I guess my laptop was just becoming unstable, probably from lack of being shut down properly. I'm going to try to shut it down more often to give it a rest.

[technical.angel]

Well, if you totally reformatted it, like I think you did, then you probably got rid of whatever was interfering with Scrivener.

I'd be careful to load software on one at a time, and give a little bit of time between installs. And, of course, since it is a beta, report to them when/if you find which one is causing the conflict.

[Kaylyn]

I have no idea what I did. The current suspicion is the tool I downloaded from Western Digital was able to access some hidden partition that the recovery discs are copied from and do a reformat from that. Yeah, it turned out to be a total format, which means I have to "reacquire" my Rosetta Stone stuff, but I saved the most important thing, and now have a working laptop for NaNo!

[roothorick]

Since when does WD make laptops? I thought they were a "Do one thing well" kind of company.

[Kaylyn]

WD makes the hard drive that is in my laptop.

And I did figure out what caused the original blue screen. It was a bug in Scrivener. It didn't check to make sure I wasn't trying to save a new project within an existing project folder, and it wound up creating an infinite loop of folders within folders. I know this because it happened again, but this time I was able to figure it out and get it fixed without a reformat. Took some fiddling to get the problem folder deleted, because it kept saying there were files within it that had names that were too long (because they were nested so deep).

I also reported my problem to the developer, and he replied back, saying he'd add a check to the Save As... feature to make sure it didn't happen to others. So yay, I officially feel like a beta tester!

[roothorick]

WD makes the hard drive that is in my laptop.

And I did figure out what caused the original blue screen. It was a bug in Scrivener. It didn't check to make sure I wasn't trying to save a new project within an existing project folder, and it wound up creating an infinite loop of folders within folders. I know this because it happened again, but this time I was able to figure it out and get it fixed without a reformat. Took some fiddling to get the problem folder deleted, because it kept saying there were files within it that had names that were too long (because they were nested so deep).

I also reported my problem to the developer, and he replied back, saying he'd add a check to the Save As... feature to make sure it didn't happen to others. So yay, I officially feel like a beta tester!

Ah yes, the whole NTFS path length limit thing. I have yet to find a fix that doesn't involve a non-Microsoft tool. I usually just boot up PartedMagic and delete it from there. (ntfs-3g is the best thing to ever happen to Linux-Windows relations.)

[technical.angel]

Well, I'm glad you not only figured it out, but reported it!

Go you!

[fma_fanatic]

Word of advice - buy a real copy of the restore discs from the laptop manufacturer, or have a copy of Windows 7 handy. I only say this because my HP laptop decided to try and kill itself at the beginning of the year and the restore discs that I made didn't do squat. I had to have a real copy of my restore discs for it to do anything at all. It took nearly two weeks from HP to arrive and those were some long two weeks (two day = two weeks in HP talk).

If I had the money, I'd have just bought Vista. I keep my restore discs with my laptop case because I never want to have to deal with that again. Ever.