Stare Down the Blue Screen of Death

For system builders, few things are as frustrating as a system that has crashed and will not boot back up. When the Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) stares back mockingly, that only adds insult to injury. In this TechBuilder Recipe, I will offer proven approaches for battling a system that stubbornly refuses to get up and stay up. I'll also provide some great resources from around the Web, several of which offer free recovery applications you should add to your system-building tool kit.

For those who haven't experienced it, BSoD is literally a blue screen displayed by Windows when a PC cannot recover from a system error. BSoD is always accompanied by arcane error messages and even more arcane instructions on what to do next. With Windows NT, 2000, and XP, BSoD occurs when the kernel encounters an error from which it cannot recover. This is typically caused by a driver that has performed what Windows calls an "illegal operation."

If the issue is with the OS—particularly the registry—the crash can be fairly easy to recover from. But deeper problems—especially those rooted in hardware issues such as the hard drive, RAM, or power supply—can be much more challenging. And these problems are compounded because critical data is often at risk, too.

Ingredients

Here are the components you'll need to get a system back up and running after a hard crash. Ideally, a system builder will have these components on hand beforehand, so they'll be ready whenever disaster strikes. Also, I'm assuming you're working with Windows XP Home on the system, or have a Professional Bootable CD on hand. Here's what you need:

• CCleaner: This free application is useful for cleaning up cache, temporary files, and other junk found on most hard drives. It also features a safe, conservative registry-cleaning function.

• Ultimate Boot CD: A bootable CD packed with utilities and applications to aid in diagnosing and repairing many system issues.

• Knoppix Live CD: This is a fully functional operating system that runs in a system’s memory and off a CD-ROM drive without needing to access the hard drive. It's useful for data recovery and troubleshooting when a hard drive isn’t working properly.

• CD Burner and Burning Software: You’ll need a CD burner, along with its accompanying software, to burn .iso files to create some of the boot disks I discuss in this Recipe.

• Memtest86: This is software designed to thoroughly test a system’s RAM chips.

• PC Inspector File Recovery: Free and powerful software used for data recovery.
• SpinRite 6 (optional): You can use this for checking, fixing, and maintaining the hard drive's health.

I'll discuss these packages in more detail, and provide links where you can download them, in the rest of this Recipe.

Common-Sense Precautions Before a Crash

The first step toward restoring a system should be taken before the system crashes. Namely, making backups. Sure, your customers have heard this a hundred times before. But backing up all critical data on a regular basis is a must. These days, users don't need sophisticated automated application suites, either. As long as they have a CD/DVD burner or small USB portable storage "thumb" drive, they're set. Instruct them to make two copies of all critical data: one for themselves, and one to store someplace safe.

Assuming your customers have been fairly diligent about making backups, here are a few other tips to protect up-and-running systems against possible future disasters:

1. Create a list of all applications and utilities on their system that are no longer used. No one needs an installation of TurboTax from three years ago, do they? Once you have your list, deploy the Windows Control Panel Add or Remove Programs function to uninstall the clutter.

2. Defrag hard disks regularly. The Disk Defragmenter included with Windows is adequate, although it cannot be scheduled. To use this Windows tool, right-click on the hard drive in My Computer, then click on Tools > Properties.

3. Clean up old temp files and cache. Windows' built-in Disk Cleanup function does a decent job. It can be found by opening My Computer, right-clicking on the hard disk and selecting Properties > Disk Cleanup on the General tab.

   In addition, specialized applications can clean out a lot of additional junk. A terrific disk cleanup application is CCleaner. CC is short for "crap cleaner," and this application's primary purpose is to clean out extraneous stuff like the Internet Explorer cache, cookies, and unnecessary temp files. Adding to its appeal is a conservative registry-cleaning function.

   As a bonus, CCleaner can help clean the Windows Registry. Cleaning the Registry manually is tricky business, even when you know what you’re doing. But CCleaner saves you from that headache, and it does a nice job automatically. The program wisely prompts you to create a backup copy of the registry. I've been using it for more than a year without any issues. Best of all, it's free.