Don't know if I am posting this right...so here goes. I have been asked by a friend to take a look at her computer which was hanging at the DMI Pool Verification phase, with a number of little colored blocks in the screen above. (these colored blocks no longer appear since fdisk). Since I know virtually nothing about computers, we decided to fdisk and reinstall windows xp home, as the computer had been working fine and she just wants the computer for her son. It is a pentium 4, 2.8 ghz, had a 40 gig and 8 gig hard drive, cd rom, dvd rom (which is disconnected, on board usb and an external usb (which has been disconnected. It doesn't appear to have on board graphics but a graphics card and on board sound. Gigabyte motherboard ga-8vt800, whatever this means... We decided to fdisk the 40 gig, but no go, but it allowed us to fdisk the 8 gig. I then started reinstalling windows xp home, and that's fine until XP gets to the part about video etc, with about 34 minutes left to go when I get a blue screen and the following (abbreviated) blue screen. A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. BAD_POOL_CALLER Blah Blah Blah Technical information: *** STOP: 0X000000C2 (0X00000007, 0X0000CD4, 0X11111111, 0X814D2C48) The help I have encountered can only be done once you have windows fully set up and also unable to run setup in safe mode. Cannot update drivers, disable cache shadowing or anything at this stage. Is there anyone out there who could assist me as I am desperate to help her out? Thanks in advance
The error BAD_POOL_CALLER is a sign of bad RAM. Go to this web site, download the tool and create a boot floppy or CD to test the RAM. http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp You should go to the web site of the drive manufactures and get their formatting tools rather than use fdisk. Post back the results.
Thanks for the help, unfortunately not even 30 minutes after my post we heard a really loud crack and there went my Windows XP DISC into a million pieces. When we finally got the samsung cd rom open, it appears that a small piece of the inside of the mechanism sheared off, slipped under the disc, scratched it badly and then caused it to shatter... I have now given up...
