i have always had goofy problems with my computer such as a problem with ntldr but i was trying to run "disk fixer" from Ontrack System Suite 4 and i returned to my computer with an actually normal BSOD message "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" which i get probably every day just out of the blue. well I rebooted to find out that it says "error loading operating system." Well i popped in my xp cd and was gonna try to "upgrade" (fix) windows xp and i found out that one of my HDDs was allegedly "too full, damaged, not formatted or formatted with an incompatible file system" and that i would have to format in either of the 6 ways they suggest and my other hdd is even worse and it says it cannot recognize it or read it and that i would have to format. I have EXTREMELY VALUABLE DATA ON BOTH DRIVES! what can I do to fix this without formatting? Both are on NTFS and one is compressed. I will do almost anything except pay someone $500 and hour to fix this mess.

1st step , slave the HD to another comp & save your stuff . Now put it back in your comp . Try system restore . http://www.techrepublic.com/article.jhtml?id=r00220020322wrr01.htm&page=3 http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/itpro/managing/restore.asp ======================================== If you still get the IRQL message , here is some info that may help . http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314063 Troubleshooting a Stop 0x0000000A Error in Windows XP The information in this article applies to: * Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition * Microsoft Windows XP Professional IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL ------- http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;810093 Error Message with RAM Problems or Damaged Virtual Memory Manager The information in this article applies to: * Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition When your computer restarts after you install Windows XP Home Edition, you may receive either of the following error messages: System has recovered from a serious error DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL ------- http://www.geocities.com/marfer_mvp/xp_notes.htm You have some driver or card that needs updating. Installing an old version of EZ CD Creator with Direct CD will cause this, bad RAID or SCSI drivers, and other reasons If applicable, apply the upgrade to XP downloadable from Roxio's web site. http://www.roxio.com/en/support/ecdc/index.html -------------- http://www.winnetmag.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=2504 Q: We have recently been getting the infamous Stop error message, IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Address. What does it mean, and how can I find out the cause? You get this message when a kernel mode process (NTOSKERNL.EXE) tries to access a memory address it doesn't have permission to access. Unfortunately, many things can cause this infamous message. Try the following ways to deal with frequent causes of the message. 1. During setup, select a standard PC configuration instead of letting setup autodetect it. 2. Disable both the CPU cache and the external cache. 3. Simplify the machine as much as possible: Remove all cards (especially network interface cards) not necessary to run NT. Also, you can disable shadow RAM/shadow ROM, L2 cache options, virus programs in CMOS, and the daylight-saving time options in CMOS. If these steps don't work, you can try a low-level format of the drive. Then, you can run setup again. If nothing seems to work, you have to call the vendor who sold you the machine. Please see "What's a Service Pack?" and "The Registry Subkey Already Exists".

One common cause of the IRQL message is a problem with the paging file. This could tie in with the "Disk Full" message. Try disabling the paging file My Computer/Properties/Advanced/Performance/Settings/Advanced/Virtual Memory/Change Tick "No Paging File" exit & reboot. When XP has started go back and turn paging back on. If you have a significant amount of RAM (at least 512mb) and don't run memory hungry apps XP will run quite happily without a page file at all.