BSOD on boot

I was making good progress on my friend's PC and was about to backup the HDD and return it.
Slow Performance / Memory running 80% - 90% all the time

The performance was significantly improved and I wasn't seeing anymore BSODs (they were originally occurring after the PC was in Win7 for awhile and running a big application).
There were a couple notifications in the lower right corner that needed to be addressed. One of them was an HP upgrade/patch. I clicked the link and it took me to an HP site and I downloaded and installed the patch. I do remember that one of the patches was a BIOS upgrade, but I don't know if this is causing the problem or not. If I remember correctly, it booted ok after the upgrades. I then ran a full scan of MS Security Essentials and it said that it found an error/infection that needed to be cleaned with MS SE Offline. I downloaded MS SE Offline and burned it to a CD, as instructed. I booted to the CD and ran it. It came back and informed me that it found and fixed the error and everything looked normal. I shut it down and attempted to re-boot and it BSOD'd almost immediately after the Post and never made it to Win7. It continues to BSOD on boot and I can't get back to Win7 now. I've been trying to repair this since Sunday night and I'm very disappointed that I can't return to a good boot.

I've tried:
normal boot
safe boot
restoring to last good configuration
restoring to last restore point
restoring to prior restore point
reverting BIOS upgrade to prior version

no luck, still BSOD.

I have an old CD copy of UBD (2 or 3 years old, does it change much?), but don't know where to start. (HDD diagnostic??)

The laptop is an HP G42. (btw, I am not a fan of HP and all of the crap they install.

Please help. Thanks!

have you tried setting the BIOS to factory defaults (or some such wording like that).

I tried setting the BIOS to the latest version (via the HP link) and tried setting it back to the version I was successfully using. THos are the only 2 options I saw. I'm not even 100% sure if it's a BIOS problem.
I need to diagnose the BSOD first. Is there something on the screen to look for?

Look for any indication of which program file was involved. If nothing shows, at least post whatever info you can get from the message on screen.

I didn't see anything in the BSOD, but maybe someone smarter than me can decipher this:

Quote:

---

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check for viruses on your computer, remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controller, check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated.
Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xFFFFF880009A9928, 0xFFFFFFFFC0000000, 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000)

---

any suggestion for how to run CHKDSK /F, if I can't boot up?

Thanks! Please help!

Did you run a hard drive diagnostic yet? That's the first thing you should do before trying to fix software errors. I've seen many bad hard drives with a 0x0000007B error.

One of your updates from HP may have caused this. A repair of WIndows may be needed.

Possibly useful links:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/...-fd80cbaf9c7a/

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...r-install.html

jdc, I'll take a look at the links and try that.

Midknyte, as to the HDD diagnostics, I'd like to run one, but can't figure out what kind of HDD it is. (I don't want to tear the laptop apart to find out what it is, but if I must, I will.

This was no help:
Spec: HP G42-410US - 14" - P P6200 - Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit - 4 GB RAM - 320 GB HDD

When in doubt, run seatools. At least you can find which brand it is. You can also look at the hdd info in the bios.

That stop error and the fact that the issue occured after fixing some infection with MSE may indicate ZeroAccess rootkit.

For x32 (x86) bit systems download Farbar Recovery Scan Tool 32-Bit and save it to a flash drive.
For x64 bit systems download Farbar Recovery Scan Tool 64-Bit and save it to a flash drive.

Plug the flashdrive into the infected PC.

Enter System Recovery Options.

To enter System Recovery Options from the Advanced Boot Options:

• Restart the computer.
• As soon as the BIOS is loaded begin tapping the F8 key until Advanced Boot Options appears.
• Use the arrow keys to select the Repair your computer menu item.
• Select US as the keyboard language settings, and then click Next.
• Select the operating system you want to repair, and then click Next.
• Select your user account an click Next.

To enter System Recovery Options by using Windows installation disc:

• Insert the installation disc.
• Restart your computer.
• If prompted, press any key to start Windows from the installation disc. If your computer is not configured to start from a CD or DVD, check your BIOS settings.
• Click Repair your computer.
• Select US as the keyboard language settings, and then click Next.
• Select the operating system you want to repair, and then click Next.
• Select your user account and click Next.

On the System Recovery Options menu you will get the following options:

• • Startup Repair
    System Restore
    Windows Complete PC Restore
    Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool
    Command Prompt
  
  
• Select Command Prompt
• In the command window type in notepad and press Enter.
• The notepad opens. Under File menu select Open.
• Select "Computer" and find your flash drive letter and close the notepad.
• In the command window type e:\frst.exe (for x64 bit version type e:\frst64) and press Enter
  Note: Replace letter e with the drive letter of your flash drive.
• The tool will start to run.
• When the tool opens click Yes to disclaimer.
• Press Scan button.
• It will make a log (FRST.txt) on the flash drive. Please copy and paste it to your reply.

I spoke to the owner and he said given all of the issues and after these cleanups, there's still no guarantees that something was missed.
He asked if we can wipe it and install Win7 from scratch.

If we go in that direction, my preference would be a standalone install of Win7 64-bit. (not oem) If I go this direction, will I still be able to get all of the necessary drivers? or am I chained to doing the HP Win7 install (I think there is a backup HP drive I can do an install from) I remember seeing an option somewhere to do a re-install of the HP Win7 version. Is this better?
I think I'm convincing myself that the HP version is preferable. I'll just have to bite the bullet and figure it out, then disable all of the HP crapware that runs in the background.

I would still run a hard drive diag, and even a Memtest. Make sure the foundation is solid before you build your house.

Check the HP website for drivers BEFORE you do a clean install. There may be several build versions, so you might have to different drivers before you find the right one.

Yes, there is a recovery partition. Usually, you would hit F10 or F11 at bootup (watch the bios screen). The owner could have burned the recovery DVDs when they bought the laptop, but you know how that goes. Maybe 1 in 10 of my customers actually do it. :p

Installing from the recovery would take it back to out-of-the-box condition, so no hunting for drivers. I would go that way if I were you.

Thanks Midknyte,
Forgot to post, last night I identified that it has a Winchester Drive and ran a quick scan and a full scan, both came back clean with 0 errors.
I'll run the memtest for good measure.

Leaning toward trying the HP Win7 reload. Should have all of the drivers I need hopefully.