Stop Error F4 and Unknown Hard Error

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jamie
  • Start date Start date
J

Jamie

A few months back, the hard drive was recently replaced on my Dell Latitude
D610, which is used for work. Ever since then, I've been getting a blue
screen at shutdown with the error "Stop: 0X000000F4 (0X00000003...etc.).
Recently, I've also been getting a little error popup right before the blue
screen that says something about an unknown hard error (it's so fast, I can't
see it very well).

The tech guys who replaced the drive also encrypted the drive with
"TrueCrypt." The drive was being replaced because the TrueCrypt would not
encrypt my old drive, so they just encrypted the new drive and then copied
the contents of the old drive to the new one.

They have no idea why this error is showing up and I have done a little
research, but can't get any definitive answer. I saw a post by someone in
this forum before where the suggestion was made to run HD Tune. I did that,
and here's the info on the hard drive:

HDTune dump
HD Tune: ST980815A Health

ID Current Worst ThresholdData
Status
(01) Raw Read Error Rate 100 253 6 0 Ok

(03) Spin Up Time 99 99 0 0 Ok

(04) Start/Stop Count 100 100 20 122 Ok

(05) Reallocated Sector Count 100 100 36 0 Ok

(07) Seek Error Rate 72 60 30 15029417 Ok

(09) Power On Hours Count 100 100 0 431 Ok

(0A) Spin Retry Count 100 100 34 0 Ok

(0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 20 148 Ok

(BB) (unknown attribute) 100 100 0 0 Ok

(BD) (unknown attribute) 100 100 0 0 Ok

(BE) Airflow Temperature 55 49 45 755892269 Ok

(C0) Power Off Retract Count 100 100 0 52 Ok

(C1) Load Cycle Count 99 99 0 2578 Ok

(C2) Temperature 45 51 0 45 Ok

(C3) Hardware ECC Recovered 60 59 0 42281648 Ok

(C5) Current Pending Sector 100 100 0 0 Ok

(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 100 100 0 0 Ok

(C7) Ultra DMA CRC Error Count 200 200 0 0 Ok

(C8) Write Error Rate 100 253 0 0 Ok

(CA) TA Counter Increased 100 253 0 0 Ok


Power On Time : 431
Health Status : Ok

Now, if I had to guess, I'd say that the bios needs to be updated and/or the
driver for the new hard drive needs to be updated (the driver is dated
7/1/01!).

Thoughts, anyone?
Thanks!
Jamie

P.S. They also removed Spybot and Adaware, which royally screwed up my
wireless connections.!!! Aughhh!
 
Jamie

Please post a complete copy of the Stop Error Report.

Disable automatic restart on system failure. This should help by
allowing time to write down the STOP code properly. Right click on
the My Computer icon on the Desktop and select Properties, Advanced,
Start-Up and Recovery, System Failure and uncheck box before
Automatically Restart.

Do not re-enable automatic restart on system failure. Check for
variants of the Stop Error message.

The Stop Error report for this error is less helpful than most:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms797140.aspx

You may get an answer by running the Windows Debugger on the memory dump
but it is a challenging task for a typical user:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/default.mspx


--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Thanks, Gerry.

The automatic restart has never been active on my machine, so that's not a
problem. It wasn't the blue screen I was talking about, but a little error
box that quickly goes away as the system continues to shut down, followed by
the blue screen. Anyway, that's not as important.

The error was, "A process or thread crucial to system operation has
unexpectedly exited or been terminated.... 0x000000F4 (0x00000003,
0x89FE16F8, 0x89FE186C, 0x805C8C88)."

I've also gotten, "DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL...STOP: 0x000000D1
(0xA23EC770...etc.) ACPI.SYS - Address B9F82E87 base at B9F79000, DateStamp
480252B1"

I am unable to create a page file for some reason, so I can't debug by
viewing the memory dump. I've followed all of the instructions for enabling a
pagefile to be created, but when I did that, I received a
KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR, STOP: 0X00000077 (0xC00000A3, etc.) and no memory
dump.

Jamie
 
Ok. I've disabled the pagefiling and reinstalled my wireless software, so the
only error I am getting is the F4 stop error, with the same 0x00000003
parameter. The drive has now started to make a muffled sputtering/clicking
sound at startup.

I think this may be a problem with the hard drive installation. They copied
over all of my files to the new drive from the old drive after encrypting the
new drive, so I suspect that there is some corruption that occurred with the
file transfer. Do you think that could be it? Would reinstalling/repairing
windows correct the problem?
Thanks!
jamie
 
Um, correction. I just had to restart because of windows updates being
installed and got the following message as it rebooted:

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL STOP: 0x000000D1 (0xA23EC770, 0x00000002,
0x00000001, 0xB9F82E87), ACPI.sys - Address B9F82E87 base at B9F79000,
Datestamp 480252b1

Jamie
 
Jamie

Are you using Windows XP SP3? Does your Windows XP CD include the SP3
update?

What is the file version and the file size of the copy of ACPI.sys
located at c:\windows\system32\drivers?


--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Hi Gerry,

I am using SP3, but the laptop is over two years old, so no, the disk does
not include SP3. The version of ACPI.sys is 5.1.2600.5512, originally created
8/4/04, modified 4/13/08, which is when they installed the new hard drive.

An update to this situation...I used the system file checker utility to
check whether any of my system files have been corrupted. Since I ran that
utility, I've only received an unknown hard error and an F4. None of the
other errors are appearing now.

Jamie
 
Jamie said:
Hi Gerry,

I am using SP3, but the laptop is over two years old, so no, the disk does
not include SP3. The version of ACPI.sys is 5.1.2600.5512, originally
created
8/4/04, modified 4/13/08, which is when they installed the new hard drive.

An update to this situation...I used the system file checker utility to
check whether any of my system files have been corrupted. Since I ran that
utility, I've only received an unknown hard error and an F4. None of the
other errors are appearing now.

Jamie
Click to expand...


Jamie...
First of all please excuse the fact that I haven't included all the previous
posts bearing on the problem you raised.

I would strongly suggest that before going any further you run the Dell
diagnostics program that should be included on a separate partition of your
Dell laptop - probably invoking that program by pressing the F12 key at the
initial stage of bootup. The program should also be included on the
utilities CD that Dell generally furnishes with their laptops/notebooks. In
any event look to your Dell User's Guide re using this diagnostics program.

You may very well be dealing with a defective HDD, notwithstanding that the
original(?) HDD was replaced only a few months ago. You've previously stated
that "The drive has now started to make a muffled sputtering/clicking sound
at startup." That is an ominous signal that something may be amiss with the
drive (hardware-wise). It should be checked out.

Also consider downloading the HDD diagnostic utility from the disk's
manufacturer and check out the disk with that program.
Anna
 
Hi Anna,

Thanks for the reply. The drive stopped making noise after I ran the system
file checker, so it's running quietly now. I do still receive the F4 error,
though. I've run the diagnostics as you instructed and the drive passed all
the tests.

I've checked the BIOS setup to make sure that the drive is NOT connected as
a slave device.

A few other things might have a role in this problem, but I can't be sure.

When I use the laptop at work, I use an external monitor as a second monitor
with the desktop extended onto the external monitor. When I take the laptop
home, I do not use an external monitor. I get the error mostly at work at
nearly every shutdown. When the drive was first changed, something had
happened to the display and my external monitor would not work until I
reinstalled it, but it took several tries to get the computer to recognize
it. I now have four "default monitors" under the "Monitors" in the Device
Manager and none of them will recognize the external monitor as a Dell
2001FP. Only the video card display properties will show the actual name of
the monitor.

Also, I use a docking station at work, whereas I do not use one at home.
Again, I very rarely get the F4 error when I shut down at home.

I wonder also if it could it be possible that using a USB flash drive might
have something to do with it. Although I wasn't having any trouble using the
device before the hard drive was switched, could it be that the driver for
the usb device is corrupted? I don't use the usb drive at home all the time.

Thanks for your help!
Jamie
 
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