Hello all- All of a sudden when I tried to boot my PC this morning, it was acting funny. When I finally booted into Windows, my computer wouldn't respond to anything, and was showing a new hardware setup. I havn't recently added any new hardware. Anyway, I rebooted, and get the blue screen of death, with these error messages: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL then further down towards the bottom(in between it says try booting in safe mode, ect..) iastor.sys- Adress F739F25F base at F7390000, DateStamp 42b2df42 Any ideas on what I can do other than reinstall windows? Ive already pressed F8 @ startup and tried all the options, including safe mode, last none good config, ect... Thank you for any help. PS- I have a Dell duo core running XP Media Center, 1gb ram, 250 hdd

Does this help? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/293077

Not really, i'm still clueless as to how to fix it..

Did you read the "Resolution" section? Life's more painless for the brainless.

It's a Dell issue and it can produce a varity of errors depending on what device iastor.sys is in conflict with. iastor.sys error If you google iastor.sys you'll find a lot of info pertaining to the problem. sLLs

You can get the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error from many causes, but sometimes it can be just because the ram module contacts are not getting a good connection - this worked for me when I got that error: See response 2 in this - try cleaning the contacts on the ram modules. http://www.computing.net/hardware/w... ....... If you still get an error after cleaning the ram contacts, iastor.sys may be corrupted. iastor.sys is used only for Intel SATA controllers running in ACHI or RAID modes. From the intel web site: "Intel® Matrix Storage Technology Changing and/or Choosing Serial ATA Modes Serial ATA (SATA) modes The SATA controller has three modes of operation: IDE mode - no AHCI, no RAID SATA mode (sometimes called AHCI mode) - AHCI enabled, no RAID RAID mode - AHCI enabled, RAID enabled NOTE: Your system may not have all three options, depending on the motherboard manufacturer and model. The SATA mode in the system BIOS determines which operating mode your system is using, whether you need the Intel® Matrix Storage Manager, and which I/O controller you should choose during the F6 installation process. IDE mode uses a different driver than SATA and RAID mode. IDE mode uses a native Microsoft* driver and does not require the F6 installation method." "Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is an interface specification that allows the storage driver to enable advanced Serial ATA features such as Native Command Queuing and hot plug. Note: AHCI requires Intel® Matrix Storage Manager software and is built into chipsets with the following controller hubs: Intel® 82801FR I/O Controller Hub (ICH6R) - RAID and AHCI Intel® Matrix Storage Manager It also provides AHCI support on select Intel® 955X, 945, 925 and 915 chipset-based platforms, as well as on Mobile Intel® 915/910 chipset-based platforms. Readme Installation Readme for Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager. 5.3 Pre-Installation Using the F6 Method Note: The Steps 1 and 2 can be skipped if you use the F6 Floppy disk utility provided by Intel. This utility can also be downloaded from the following website. These methods are applicable to systems configured for RAID or AHCI mode. http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scr... 1. Extract all driver files from the installation package. See Section 7.2 for instructions on extracting the files. 2. Create a floppy containing the following files in the root directory: iaAhci.inf, iaAhci.cat, iaStor.inf, iaStor.cat, iaStor.sys, and TxtSetup.oem. 3. At the beginning of the operating system installation, press F6 to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver. 4. When prompted, select 'S' to Specify Additional Device. 5. When prompted, insert the floppy disk you created in step 2 and press Enter. 6. At this point you should be presented with a selection for one of the following depending on your hardware version and configuration: - Intel(R) 82801GBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH7M) - Intel(R) 82801GR/GH SATA RAID Controller (Desktop ICH7R/DH) - Intel(R) 82801GR/GH SATA AHCI Controller (Desktop ICH7R/DH) - Intel(R) 82801FR SATA RAID Controller (Desktop ICH6R) - Intel(R) 82801FR SATA AHCI Controller (Desktop ICH6R) - Intel(R) 82801FBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH6M) - Intel(R) 82801ER SATA RAID Controller (Desktop ICH5R) 7. Highlight the selection that is appropriate for the hardware in your system and press Enter. 8. Press Enter again to continue. Leave the floppy disk in the system until the next reboot as the software will need to be copied from the floppy disk again when setup is copying files." In your case, you could download the utility that makes the F6 floppy, and replace iastor.sys on the hard drive with the one on the floppy set. *********************************************************************** If you still get errors, check your hard drive. See the latter part of response 1 in this: http://www.computing.net/windows95/... If you don't have a floppy drive, you can get a CD image diagnostic utility from most hard drive manufacturer's web sites, but obviously you would need to make a burned CD, preferably a CD-R for best compatibilty, on another computer if you need to.