Hello! This message is being posted for a friend of mine who is having computer trouble. The specs listed (900 MHZ / 512 MB RAM) are for his computer, by the way. I went to his house to try and fix his troubles, but I'm stumped. He has a computer that he bought more than a year ago from a person who custom-builds systems. Therefore, I have no idea what brand of hardware, etc. is in the computer, or what Service Packs are running in the machine. It is running Windows 2000 Professional. Unfortunately, the computer guy moved, and the computer system didn't come with any restore disks, software CDs, etc. Everything seems fine, and the default Windows desktop is about to appear. Suddenly, a blue screen appears with error codes. I didn't have a chance to write down the addresses listed on the screen, but managed to take down some information: "KMODE_Exception_Not_Handled... win32k.sys" Then, it says something about a memory dump (disappears too fast to read). I have tried several alternative startup options, mainly Safe Mode. However, I cannot even access Windows through Safe Mode. My friend says that the problem just started suddenly, so I don't know if he did anything that could have lead to the problem. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you very much, and I will try to provide as much info as I can if more information is required.

What you're seeing go by at (failed) startup is Windows 2000's STOP ERROR which,in the case of a severe error, prevents startup. The problem is almost certainly the memory. It's one of several items that people want to scrimp on when building a PC but its failure can be far reaching and difficult to troubleshoot. First, remove the memory and replace it with same denomination (1x512 or 2x256, whatever you now have). If it still fails, try one strip in slot 1. If that fails, try one strip in slot 2. Your troubleshooting needs to rule out both the memory and the slot(s). If you're still getting STOP ERRORS, you might consider the power supply (and don't make the same mistake and replace it with another cheap one). Memory needs clean power and most computers use cheap power supplies. If that fails, I would work on the HDD. You'll need a CD copy of Win2k and, of course, you'll then need to boot from the CD and that requires the BIOS and Startup tweaking (f8) as the machine starts up. Once the CD has booted, you'll need a good utility for defragmenting and maybe partition checking. If you have more than one HDD, you might have some inconsistency that Win2k doesn't like (not very likely). Partition Magic is great, by the way. It's worth every cent. After all that, My money's on the memory.

Hi, Jon. Thanks for the help. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like the memory is the problem. I tried several tests with each piece of RAM in the computer, and even tried some new RAM. The same error pops up. I am not very skilled when it comes to hardware installation (pretty much I can install memory, video cards, etc.). By the power supply, what are you referring to? The power cable, battery, or something else? I don't have access to a copy of Windows 2000, or any other Windows OS. Is there anything else I could try? Thanks very much for your help. -J.P.

I also tried downloading the Windows 2000 Bootdisk from Bootdisk.com However, when it got to Disk #2, it told me that the file openhci.sys was corrupted. This is driving me crazy. I want to fix my friend's computer and am running out of ideas. Thanks in advance, J.P.

Without a copy of Win2k, you might be screwed. What kind of HDD? You might find a boot program with your HDD software but I woldn't bet you'd get back to your OS with it and if the seller didn't give up a copy of the OS, he probably didn't leave your friend with any utilities. Can you borrow a copy of Win2k from someone? By Power supply, I mean the power unit that is part of your PC and plugs into the wall. It's taking 110v out of the wall socket and converting to low voltage (5v, 12v, etc). The low voltage leads are, in turn, plugged into your motherboard, floppy drive, hard drive, cdr, etc. Flaky power can cause a lot of different problems. Stop errors could be related to anything. My experience tells me to look at the memory first. It could be a bad driver, bad hard drive, the motherboard, bios, memory, or corrupted boot track - most anything. If your friend swears up and down that he didn't make any change to operating system or software (drivers, updates, etc) before the problem started, then I would suspect hardware. If there is valuable data on the HDD, you may want to first move it to a working machine and back the valuable data off of it. Better yet, if you can move it to a working machine, you might use that to troubleshoot, i.e. if it starts up in another machine, then the problem isn't the OS or the HDD. Do try Microsoft's knowledge base for Win2k and look at their articles on stop errors. But, unless you can get a look at the entire message, that might not be helpful. But the bottom line is that you need a copy of an operating system. Either Win2k to recover or another OS to load and install. I don't know where you live but if in a major city in continental US, try craigslist.com. Might be someone selling a copy of Windows or willing to lend you one.

Another thing... I used to OC (over clock) alot of my systems, and pretty frequently you'll also get stop errors in those cases. Sometimes you set the PCI mhz wrong or whatever. Also, i've had a faulty SB live card once which caused stop errors left and right when it was plugged in. I would follow Jon's advice first, if that fails you might want to try going bare bones and working back up till you get the problem again. By barebones i mean going in and removing all peripherals you do not need (no extra HD's, one stick of memory only, no cards except GPU). Also, check your BIOS settings thoroughly and refer to your motherboards booklets (or the mobo manufactures web site) for info on proper bios settings (be careful, as i suppose if you really goofed the values up in the bios you could damage your mobo - not likely but possible).

Well, I finally got the computer to work again. I just formatted the HD and put in Windows 98 (all I could find). For some reason, it runs a bit on the slow side. I'm probably just spoiled, though. :) Well, thanks for all the help, everyone. I truly appreciate it, friends! :)