sudden error message!

[ahopeter]

i was about to play an online game when all of a sudden the screen turned blue with a long message...the heading read "a problem has been detected and windows has been shutdown to prevent damage to your computer

DRIVER_CORRUPTED_MMPOOL"

what happened?  i ran panda activescan and avg 6.0, and found no viruses?!? please help me...again. thanks

[query]

Look in the event logs to see if you can find an error message that points back to the problematic driver.

[ahopeter]

sorry really bad with computers, where can i find the events logs? sorry query!

[ahopeter]

i found the logs in zone alarms, but i didn t see anything for drive specifics.  but it seems like there is nothing really out of the ordinary, is this something i need to approach dell about while im still under warranty?

[query]

Look at the system and application logs - in the control panel, under administrative tools.

[ahopeter]

i cant find anything that looks like sytem and applicationd logs in the administrative tools?

[Neon]

under administrative tools, choose event viewer

[ahopeter]

it says that my internet logs was corrupt and that it has been deleted... does that mean im in the clear now?!?

[Chandler]

It might be worth visiting Windows Update to see if there are any updated WHQL certified drivers for your hardware.  That error was caused by a driver on your system, but without error logs it's impossible to tell which.

Every Windows XP WHQL certified driver has worked perfectly for me in terms of stability, the only problems I've had with Windows XP with regards to drivers is when I've used vendor's untested drivers.

There is a "workaround" fix for it documented here:
http://www.osr.com/ddk/ddtools/bccodes_3e07.htm

There is also a program on there which can detect whichever driver causes it, should it ever happen again.


Update:  I've just found out that Windows XP includes a built-in driver verifier.  To run it go to Start -> Run and type:
verifier

[ahopeter]

so is this a problem with the actual hardware, or is it a program on my computer?

can it be corrected through other software, or is it something that has to be corrected by replacing the hardware completely?

[ahopeter]

in applications there are 16 error messages since 12/31.03, and 14 warnings... the sources were either msinstaller or true vectorservice.
in system there are 27 errors and 12 warnings since 12/30/03. .. the sources are browser(most recent ones), atapi, print, and w32 time.  is this alot, and what does it mean!?! please help, im getting really scared now.

[Chandler]

It's probably a dodgy driver, which should be updated.  What sound card and graphics card do you have?

If you run verifier.exe it should be able to cause the bad driver to crash again so that you can find out which one to update.

[ahopeter]

i went to verifier like you told me, and im just lost on what im supposed to do there.  i just did all the recommended windows updates... will that do the trick?  the thing that has me so worried is that dell just replaced my hard-drive and im worried that this new one is defective!?! i appreciate the quick and thorough responses... thanks so much.

[Chandler]

When you ran Windows Update, where there any driver updates in addition to the Recommended and Critical Updates?  By default these aren't selected, you have to manually add them yourself.

If you don't experience any more problems, I wouldn't worry about it.

A failing hard drive will almost always issue a SMART error, and this will be logged under "disk" in the Event Logs.  Note, ATAPI errors are due to bad CD-Rs and don't indicate any hardware problems.

[ahopeter]

no, there werent any additional things for me to check in the win updates.
so far i havent experienced anything out of the unusual since then, any the message has not come back(knock on wood).
i was trying to find the "disk" section under event viewer, but couldnt find anything.  
sounds like you think everythings ok now though, right?

[Chandler]

It looks that way, yes.

[ahopeter]

cool, thanks so much for your help and your patience with a beginner such as my self.