Total crash - HP Pavilion

[adie0000]

1) PC randomly crashed into "Blue screen of death" (BSD), message KMODE EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED

2) Said it would collate error info and restart, but just hanged when it got to 100%

3) Hard reset seemed to go OK, but after a literally 3-5 minutes, crashed with same BSD message.

4) This happened repeatedly many times, even with no programmes running (except web browser)

[NB scan drive showed no errors, checked Windows updates and I was running the latest version]

5) Tried to  go to a previous restore point, but after >20 minutes trying to install, crashed again (BSD.)

6) Now when I try to start the PC, I get STOP CODE: CRITICAL PROCESS DIED (BSD)

7) PC restarts automatically, goes to "Preparing Automatic Repair", then "Diagnosing your PC", then "Automatic Repair"

😎 Then I get message "Automatic Repair couldn't repair your PC" with options to shut down or go to "Advanced options"

9) In "Advance options", choosing "Launch Windows 10" just starts the loop over again

All help appreciated for how I can 1) even start the PC properly, and 2) fix the problem. Thank you!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

If you can live with losing all of your files and programs you installed after buying the PC, you can, with another Windows PC and a 32 GB USB flash drive use the HP cloud recovery tool to reinstall W10, the drivers and the software that originally came with your PC.

Here is an info link for how to use that utility...

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06162205

If that doesn't work, it is possible there is a hardware problem...bad hard drive, faulty memory module...

[adie0000]

Thank you for your suggestion Paul - are you a "member of the public" or do you work for HP?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

I'm just a community member like you.

I do not work for or represent HP.

If your PC is under warranty, and you want to speak with someone that works for HP, you can call HP in the UK at the link below.

https://www8.hp.com/uk/en/contact-hp/phone-assist.html

Call the number listed for Computing products for home.

[adie0000]

Thanks Paul, especially bearing in mind you're just a community member! (I only wanted know whether to reply "formally" to HP or not!)

Yes, my PC's under warranty, and I'm now in touch with HP about it, but they don't seem to have any other ideas so far, but I'm awaiting a callback... my main concern right now is retrieving the data if I possibly can.

Thanks again & have a good weekend, stay safe! Adrian

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome, Adrian.

Here is how you can recover your data...assuming the disk isn't bad.

Instead of using the cloud recovery tool, use the Microsoft media creation tool to create a bootable W10 installer.

For the USB installer, you need an 8 GB flash drive.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Boot from the installer, and when you get to the part that asks 'Where do you want to install Windows,' you install it over the current Windows installation partition, and it will create a Windows.old folder.

Do not delete or format any partitions.

After W10 installs, you can explore the Windows.old folder, find your old user profile and copy your user profile folders to a portable hard drive for safekeeping.

Once you are sure you have everything, you can use the cloud recovery tool to factory reset the PC.