Everything ends in a BSOD. Where to go next :(

[alex98uk]

I was playing Bad Company 2 when all of a sudden, BSOD. I tried to reboot but Windows would give me a BSOD every time I attempted to startup. I tried repairing with the DVD, but again, BSOD. So, I wiped the SSD with active@ Killdisk and attempted to reinstall Windows fresh. Again, BSOD when attempting to reinstall.

I ran a surface scan of the SSD with 0 errors, so I know it's not the drive. So... I updated to the latest BIOS and still no luck. Between all this I have been resetting the CMOS as well. After updating, the PC is locking up in the BIOS, locking up when trying to run Hiren's bootCD.

I just don't know what to do next? Any ideas?

[razer121]

can i ask, have you tryed installing with a normal sata hdd??

[alex98uk]

can i ask, have you tryed installing with a normal sata hdd??

No... I haven't actually. I shall try that first, although I don't seem to be able to get anywhere without the BIOS locking up... :/

[alex98uk]

Riiiight, the Windows installer seems to be working with my 4 year old SATA drive installed. What does this mean for my new SSD that causes it to BSOD :/

[Rob_B]

CPU HSF working? If it's locking when in the BIOS then you have other issues! Take out a stick of RAM, reseat CPU?

[alex98uk]

CPU HSF working? If it's locking when in the BIOS then you have other issues! Take out a stick of RAM, reseat CPU?

I did another CMOS reset which seems to have stopped the BIOS locking. All fans are on and working. I unplugged my 64GB Crucial M225 SSD and have an old school SATA 1.5 Hitachi Deskstar plugged in and attempting to install Windows on (and it's doing it...).

[razer121]

RMA well thats all i can think of but i know nothing about ssd does it lock up in the bios still with the sata hdd?

[alex98uk]

RMA well thats all i can think of but i know nothing about ssd does it lock up in the bios still with the sata hdd?

Nope, didn't seem to, at least not after CMOS reset. Although, I just remembered that yesterday, I ran two disk surface scanners from Hiren's boot cd. One showed up numerous bad sectors while the second showed none.

Can you actually get bad sectors on an SSD? I'm not sure if errors differ because it's flash memory.

[alex98uk]

Right, well Windows installed great on my second disk. I then plugged in my SSD and said I need to setup a boot table and gave the choice of either a MBR or GPT (I think it was).

I chose MBR, and rebooted my PC with the SSD installed, but the slow disk hard drive that I had installed Windows on, unplugged. Now Windows setup seems to be working great and not BSOD'ing.

I'm confuzzled.

[peterb]

I'd be tempted to run memtest 86+ to check out your RAM. The symptoms you described are typical of RAM problems.