I've had a a few BSOD's recently. There are some files that have been saved but I'm not sure how to determine how to read them and what might be the cause. Now I forget where the files are located. How do you read these files to determine the cause of the BSOD's? There was a message after restart that said Windows will try to determine the cause but it does not come back with anything. After you click it, it just disappears.
If there were some kind of error codes then you can look them up on Microsofts web site to give you some kind of an idea.
a non install app called bluescreenview can help the logs you can't find are located in "computer management" console under "event viewer" either thru administrative tools or just go to system tools in accessories in program list bsod is usually caused by driver or hardware including bad sectors on a hdd you can disable auto restart by going into safe mode & use arrow key to scroll to "disable auto restart upon event or some other such wording in the safe mode list,or can be got from properties of "my computer" then select startup & recovery it should be the bottom button,if your using vista or w7 it's "advanced system settings" then the 3rd button down
OK so I found this article by HowToGeek and I downloaded to program called BlueScreenView. But the article does not go into detail about how to decipher the information so you can determine how to fix the problem. Seems all my BSOD files have been saved and the problem does not appear to be the same every time.
If alls been well & now this bsod appeared out of the blue start with the hdd itself,remove it from the comp place it in an external housing (be sure to get model & serial number)then download manufacturers hdd diagnostic utility,for this exercise your looking for unrepairable bad sectors or amount of bad sectors & how much percentage they take up then cross reference with what the manufacturer recommends,if your lucky your drive may be under warranty. If its a hardware issue well that'd be a case of trial & error if the error codes make no sense which is no surprise,you could remove all hardware or disconnect it,leaving only power supply connected to mobo,then reboot yeah it'll give beep code,turn off attach keyboard then reboot & so on & so forth however i'd use onboard graphics if possible & not PCIe & only 1 stick of ram & perhaps re-ttach dvd drive tho with the less junk connected the easier the issue will be to find if it's hardware,the easiest method of hardware testing is use a linux live cd or install it in dual boot to the hdd,if it runs fine then it's a windows issue or a driver or a particular bad sector on hdd
