[Ninajitz]

Hi guys.
Recently I've started getting an error message when logging into Windows Vista Home Premium. (SP2 I believe)
It says something along the lines of:

'Windows has encountered a critical error and will restart in one minute. Please save all your work'

Windows continues to load it's normal bits and pieces, my virus scanner and a couple of other startup programs before restarting as if I had hit the hard reset button.
I've also noticed if I don't login, just leaving it at the account selection screen restarts the computer after a minute also.

It was originally doing this maybe once or twice a week, however it's now doing it every time I turn the computer on, making it unusable for anything I'd like to do.
Also originally, using the 'boot logging' option (the one that outputs driver loading to a text file, although I'm not sure where) would stop it doing anything at all, but it now just acts exactly the same.

The only thing I can recall 'going wrong' recently just before I started getting the error was a powercut when windows was installing updates. The windows sidebar (which I normally have disabled) has occasionally popped up a few gadgets, but not the bar itself, and come up with an exception error. However I have gone in and disabled the sidebar in safemode and also renamed the exe itself to stop it loading and the error persists.

I have also run windows update a few times since first getting the error and from what I could see, windows has not detected an update install failure and has just carried on installing newly released updates as normal.

I can still get in as normal in safe mode although disabling everything at startup has no affect on the computer restarting normally.
I've run a full virus scan using Clamwin and although it found a few problems it didnt appear to be related as the problem is still occuring.
I've tried updating some drivers as well, including graphical, sound (although it's onboard sound and as usual a pain to get drivers for) and the motherboard.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, don't hesitate to ask for any extra info you may need if I've not included it!

Wrin.

[Phantom010]

Can you please post a few of your latest minidump files? They are located in C:\WINDOWS\Minidump. ZIP (no .rar files please) them and attach them to your next post.

[Ninajitz]

Sure, I'll put that up here once I get home this evening. Didn't want it to seem like I wasn't paying attention here!

[Ninajitz]

Hi again. I don't actually have a minidump folder. A quick browse of google seems to indicate this is something created with a BSOD, which is something I've never had since switching to Vista.

If there's something not turned on and I've missed it, can you please explain how to turn it on so I can get you the info you need.

Thanks
Wrin

[Phantom010]

It may be hidden.

Open your Folder Options and click on View. Put a check mark on "Show hidden files and folders".

Search for the Minidump folder again.

[Ninajitz]

I already have hidden folders set to show, still no sign of a minidump folder.

[Phantom010]

Please click here to download and install the HijackThis installer.

Run it and select Do a system scan and save a logfile.

The log will be saved in Notepad. Copy and paste the log in your next post.

Do not fix anything

[Ninajitz]

For some reason when it gets to the end of the scan the program automatically closes, and even though the file itself (for highjack this) is still there, it says windows cannot find the specified file. I tried with both the installer and standalone executable and the same thing.

Oddly I got this with spybot search and destroy a few weeks back but put it down to a bug in the current release of that.
Could be something more, but I imagine it would be hard to tell without hijack this being able to make a log.

This was all, by the way, in safe mode.

Thanks
Wrin

[Ninajitz]

I've discovered that the first time it resets after I've been in safe mode it loads up fine. Otherwise the error still comes up.

Not sure if this helps at all.

[Phantom010]

Originally Posted by Ninajitz

I've discovered that the first time it resets after I've been in safe mode it loads up fine. Otherwise the error still comes up.

Not sure if this helps at all.

In that case, can you run HijackThis?

[Ninajitz]

Unfortunatly not. Nothing else to add other than that.

[Phantom010]

You could try running a chkdsk /r.