Windows Crash Dump?

Does anyone know what this is and why my new Vista had a signal come across the screen stating that widows was going to have a crash Dump, and then the computer went black and unresponsive. Curious, noone seems to know what this means. TY

It means your operating system (vista) was crashing and it took all the contents that was in memory and put it on harddrive.

The dump will be equal to the amount of system ram you have.

For example if you have 2 gigs of ram, your dump will be 2 gigs in size.

Honestly, the dump will be of no use to you, unless you can read/code in C++

After that, hold down the power button for 5-10 seconds to shutoff the computer.

Reboot the computer and see what the results were-you need to find why it crashed as well.

After it came back up there was just black screen and there was no way to even do the f8 or what ever my system uses. What is a crash dump usually? Virus or flaw on the part of my new comp? Best buy is having me file a letter to get compensation. I am confused though and would like to know if I am at fault or the comp. TY

reply to post by antar


A crash dump is just a copy of what was in the computer's memory at the time of the crash.

For someone that knows how Windows Vista (in this case) works, it will help pinpoint the reason.

For someone that does not know how Windows works it is useless, unless you want to send it to Microsoft to be analysed.

For that reason, I usually disable the creation of a crash dump in case of a crash.

reply to post by ArMaP


Yeah, but I think she's saying that now the PC won't even boot up. That usually means a Hard Disk error right where the bootloader tries to read the disk, or there's an error in the file table.

It's a little unclear, but sounds like there's not even a POST occurring. Getting a replacement is probably the best idea, which seems to be happening.


[edit on 31-3-2008 by Badge01]

I dunno...I think Vista is the devil. Don't mind me though, I'm a member of the "Urban Amish" - I have technology, I just either don't care or don't know how to use it. I'm a really sad case, if it wasn't for the board threads I wouldn't know how to do jack.

I'll watch this thread, though, so I can see what the hell I'm supposed to be doing.

You know what thy say..Fake 'til you make it....

Problem detected w/ windows has been shut down to prevent change to comp. Collecting data technical information Stop for crash dump, Initilizing for crash dump. Then black, no opening comp after that, non responsive, this 98 will take 35 minutes to load this post... Need to buy new comp... Much more to message but it is awful with this comp. No F8 option, just black.

I'm glad you're getting a replacement, just be sure and get XP, NOT VISTA If you do get Vista again, just get used to constant Vista updates which aren't compatible with Vista which means they rerun constantly trying to take, printers are not compatible with Vista their software becomes corrupted within a month or so, and lots of other fun surprises. I know all the techs in Malaysia by name now for the Dell end of it, and the Microsoft techs are like family to me. Vista

Good Luck

STM

reply to post by seentoomuch

Just a suggestion: if you are doing automatic updates, you may wish to consider to just be notified about the updates, and download and install them yourself. Maybe a few days after they arrive. I've had much better luck with the updates that way. *knock on wood*
Even SP1 installed painlessly. *knock on wood*



~~~~~~~~~~

Antar, I am sorry for your problems, and that is all I can offer as I have not an idea what happened.

reply to post by DontTreadOnMe

Thanks for the help, and this time I didn't even have to be on hold for 20 minutes, greatly appreciated,



STM

Now I'm all freaked out about Vista on my laptop. So far no problems but thanks for the tip DTOM!

Sounds to me like a hardware issue... Have you updated your motherboards BIOS with the latest software? Have you downloaded all the latest drivers for all your hardware?

I wouldn't rely on windows update to do this... It would be better to download the drivers from the manufacturer... Let me know...

Hi Antar, Sorry to hear your having problems. Is your copy of Windows Vista an upgrade over the top of a previous OS or a full installation from scratch? Also it might be helpful if you told us what you were doing before you got the dreaded black screen of death. Were you having or had any problems previously. Posting your computers specs would also be helpful.

Try this tip below.

Windows Vista Hangs At a Black Screen When Booting Up

A common problem I’m seeing is Windows Vista hanging at a black blank screen when it boots up. This guide walks you through one simple attempt to fix Windows Vista and get it to boot up again.

This guide assumes Windows Vista was working fine previously.

Warning: Using this guide could cause a loss of data although it’s a very small chance. What do you have to lose? You can’t boot Vista anyway.

Last Known Good Configuration
I’m going to walk you through booting Windows Vista using its last known good configuration. Since Windows Vista reverts to a previous version of the registry, you might lose data that was worked with since your last successful boot.

Make sure your computer is powered down.
Turn your computer on and immediately start pressing F8 on your keyboard repeatedly until you see a black screen with white writing that gives you a list of boot options.
Use the down arrow on your keyboard to select the Last Known Good Configuration (Advanced) option.
Press Enter on your keyboard and cross your fingers.

For people with old video cards that can be problematic - try these tips

-Black screen or video corruption at first boot.

Welcome to Windows Vista! Both Nvidia and ATI based cards have known
problems for certain models that are still under investigation. If you get
the black screen or corrupt video output after seeing the grey screen saying"Windows is preparing to boot for the first time", this is a highly likely culprit. Chances are you panicked and rebooted and keep ending up either at a ascreen with a blinking cursor or random lines or snow accross the screen after the "Windows is loading" screen. So we'll take it from there.

1. Rebooot and enter Bios. Make sure the following is set up correctly. If
you have never changed adavanced Bios setting, please call your geeky cousin who has and have him explain as he does the next steps.

2. Make sure that APIC is enabled and ver2.0 is supported. In simple terms, this is the software that assigns priority to all devices attatched to your motherboad. Please see Wikipedia for the heavy description. Ver2.0 is required for Vista to make sure that all your devices will be found during
setup and running the OS. For those with some previous experiance, APIC takes care of assigning IRQ and DMA addressing to all system devices to make sure that every device can coomunicate with the system in order of priority. If you have a computer or motherboard made after 2005, this is almost assured to be an option. You can get Vista wokring under Ver1.0, but we are leaving that to those with previous experiance and simply saying that this is not a MS supported option.

3.Make sure that ACPI is enabaled. This is different than above. ACPI is
what makes the computer go to "sleep" or "hibernate". It is universal in
computers after 2000. Make sure you have at least ACPI S1 enabaled. S3 is only possible in very custom system without headaches.

4. Make sure that MPS table 1.1 or 1.4 is selected. I recomend 1.1 from
personal experiance. This only applies to those with dual-core systems.
Please consult your computer/MB documentation.

5.Make sure that on-board video is disabled if availible. Please also
disable quick/fast boot for your own sanity.

6. Now save and reboot. (Typically F10)

7. On reboot, after the machine has counted the system memory and found the hard drive, hit F8 to enter the windows boot menu. Your machine has not yet loaded up winodws from the hard drive, and is essentially no different than a machine with a blank hard drive. You want to choose safe mode with networking.

8. You will now see the system loading, line by line. Have a cup of coffee
on slower systems.

9. You will end up in Safe mode, but will now be getting a message of not
being able to continue as setup was not completed. Please hit Shift-F10. This will leave you staring at the command prompt. You do *remember* DOS, right?

10. Type "devmgmt.msc" and the Device manager from the windows controll panel will show up. Look at the video card. Chance are it will not have an exclamation point like some devices. Feel free to load up drivers for anything needed from here if you know how to.

11. Right click on the video card entry and choose "Update Driver..." A
wizard will start to guid you through the proccess.

12. You will see "Can Windows connect to Windows Update to search for
software?" Click "No, not this time"

13.Click Next, then click "Chhose from a list", now click next.

14. Select the generic VGA Driver and click next. Windows will now install
the standard VGA driver. Click OK to close the wizard and then close the
device manager. Now click ok to that old warning about winodws not finished installing. The system will reboot.

15. The system will now boot up without without hanging or faulting on your video cards driver. The machine may want to reboot one more time after setting up your settings. If it does, you may have to repeat the proccess above one more time.

16. After completing set-up, you should now be looking at the desktop and
thinking "Thank god". Now feel free to install the video drivers of your
choice. Please make a restore point first.

Good Luck!

Originally posted by antar
Does anyone know what this is and why my new Vista had a signal come across the screen stating that widows was going to have a crash Dump, and then the computer went black and unresponsive. Curious, noone seems to know what this means. TY

It means you are being monitored if the screen flashed. Probably an infrared signal crossed a microwave signal or some other frequency. In simpler terms- big brother just blinked!

Also, a stack dump- cache dump- crash dump=Dump Windows and buy a mac or linux!

In reality- you are probably using third-party software or another program that is interfering with your OS. Vista does not know what to do- you could need an update or some kind of patch. Could be a lot of things. I got tried of trying to figured it out while being directed to Microsoft to buy something else so I just figured it boils down to...You need to go to the store again!:bnghd:

Thank you everyone for your great comments and suggestions. I have tried all of the above with no success, as it is forever dead for all intent purpose, I 'could' get them to come out ,Best Buy comp geeks but I have too much at stake to not know my pc. Im out of vista! Sent the reply letter yesterday to the arbitrators office. I am glad that we opened this discussion as there are many of us now being coerced into the vista system. For me it is not compatible to any of my devices and could not even use my favorite antivirus with it. Some of the comments here will help with my case...

For those of you having problems with Windows Vista. Here's a compatible hardware & software list. My favourite OS is Windows XP 64bit and Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit is good as well. I've had no major problems that couldn't be fixed with a bit of googling. Vista SP1 is highly recommended. All my games now run nice and smooth.

www.iexbeta.com... Hardware list

www.iexbeta.com... Software list

If your concerned about software compatibility, create a dual boot system.

You'll need two hard disks or 2 partitions on your hard disk and then you can create a dual boot system with Both Windows Vista & Windows XP.

To create a partition you'll obviously need partitioning software installed first. Simply install Windows XP first to drive D: and then Windows Vista to Drive C:

How to solve the dreaded blue screen of death and read minidump files. It's easier than you think.:shk: Follow the instructions on the website below.

forums.majorgeeks.com...



[edit on 3-4-2008 by kindred]