Crashes At Start-Up

About half the time, my 2 year old Dell crashes at start-up (Windows XP Home, SP2). After rebooting, I receive a message that my system has "recovered from a serious problem".

When I query Windows about the error, it states that it can't tell what caused the problem, but that it may be due to a driver. I checked the Windows site, and there are no driver updates available for my system.

The error signature for one of the crashes is as follows:

BCC Code: 10000050 BCP1:8EFD8FDE BCP2:00000000 BCP3:F99B4361 BCP4:00000000 05Ver:5_1_2600 SP:2_0 Product:768_1

After rebooting, usually the PC will function properly, except that the sound system may not work. I receive an error message that states that there may not be enough codecs (or codescs) to play music files.

Also, when I change any settings (for instance, Internet Options or System Configuration Utility), I receive an error message that states that Internet Explorer cannot find the Active Desktop HTML file. I click "okay" to turn off the active desktop, but nothing seems to change.

Under Device Manager, there is a conflict showing for Microtek SimpleSCSI Miniport Drivers and SCSI/RAID Host Controller.

All suggestions for diagnosing these problems and restoring my system will be greatly appreciated.

 

That's a lot of bugs... Ever thought about formatting and reinstalling? Usually that's the easiest way to cure something like this.

 

My first course of action with something like this would be to run SFC (start > run: "sfc /scannow", make sure to have your XP CD handy), then download and install driver updates for everything, especially the motherboard chipset drivers.

 

Although many people believe it is almost always the answer, formatting is often not needed.

Jimbob

 

I ran SFC and updated the drivers. So far, the crashes have stopped.

If things should get suddenly worse, I'll probably try a non-destructive reinstall of Windows XP.

Thank you very much for the helpful suggestions.