XP-SP3 can't get past safe mode following Microsoft update

[peak4]

Are you able to uninstall those update from add/remove in control panel

Still over at my Dad's at the moment, but I don't think so.

I suspect that's the problem as one or more of the last four of the five hotfixes crashed or clashed with something else during the re-boot, hence don't show as installed.
Only the first one has an uninstall folder resident in the Windows folder, I wonder if it's possible to force all of them to re-install from safe Mode?

[essexboy]

You may be able to download the standalone packages to the desktop and then install them in safe mode

[peak4]

Working on it at the moment.

Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool Jan 2014 KB890830   downloaded and ran without issue
Security Update for XP & Server KB2917500  seemed to extract OK
Security update for XP KB2914368 re-installed and then uninstalled
Security Update for Word 2003 KB2863866 Error Message- cannot be applied
Security update for Office 2007 KB2837615 Error Message - Failed

Will need to re-boot to complete the uninstallation, but that will have to wait until after a very late tea 

[peak4]

Just an update, so you don't think I'm ignoring you.
The various previous ideas never did work, though the really irritating bit is that I still can't disable auto re-start after the BSOD, so I had to resort to getting my DSLR out and learn how to shoot video 

Turned out to be a Stop 0x0000007F error, which I couldn't get BlueScreenView to record as the PC was failing to write the minidump file.
I has an inspired thought and wondered if Avast was blocking it. Sure enough, when I uninstalled Awast, Minidumps started to be written, pointing to nvgts.sys NVidia's SATA Performance Driver.
This seems to be something to do with the disk management, well after the RAID drivers have been invoked, and during the XP boot process.
I don't think the driver is corrupted, but I guess it must be conflicting with something which was modified in Windows Update. I managed to uninstall one of the updates, two didn't install anyway, so I couldn't remove them and the other says that you can't uninstall it.

Now in the process of backing up the faulty C partition so I can still at least get back to this point when I start delving deeper.
Also annoyingly I can't get SFC /scannow to work from within Safe Mode, doubly annoying considering how long it took me to make an X-SP3 slipstreamed disk  for it to verify against.
Does anyone know a cure for that one please? ( I understand it doesn't work fom withing XP Recovery Console either)
I'll see if I can boot to BART PC and try and run it on a remote Windows installation from there.

I'd wlcome any further inspiration for when this backup finishes in an hour or so.

[essexboy]

That stop code (dependant on the second group) points to hardware

This error message can occur if either of the following conditions exists:
•Your computer has hardware or software problems (hardware failure is the most common cause).
•You try to over clock the speed of your computer's processor (for example, you set a 150 MhZ processor to run at 187 MhZ).

The above STOP error means a trap occurred in kernel mode and the trap is either one the kernel is not allowed to have or is always fatal.

The most common causes of a STOP 0x7F are:
•Low-level hardware corruption, such as corrupt memory (RAM)
•Mismatched memory modules
•A malfunctioning motherboard

To determine an approximate cause, examine the parameters at the top of the STOP screen:
**STOP 0x0000007F (0x000000XX, 0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
 UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
The most important parameter is the first one (0x0000000X) which may have several different values. The cause of this trap can vary, depending on the value of this parameter. All traps that cause a STOP 0x7F can be found in any Intel x86 microprocessor reference manual as they are specific to the x86 platform. Here are some of the most common ones:

   Values       Meaning
   ----------   --------------------
   0x00000000   Divide by Zero Error
   0x00000004   Overflow
   0x00000005   Bounds Check Fault
   0x00000006   Invalid Opcode
   0x00000008   Double Fault

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/137539

[peak4]

Yes, that's what bothers me, but it seems off that it performs perfectly in Safe Mode with Networking.
I've been wondering if it was something as simple as needing the SATA cables of memory sticks re-seating.
The machine is normally left on permanently and hence quite warm all the time, but we've been away for a week in Prague; with no central heating in our house, it would have got quite cold and just started to heat up again when it crashed. (It was a suffix 0x000008 stop, by the way- I never did get much more from the video, as it was on screen so briefly and I was only recording at 30 fps)

However I seem to be having a bit of success. Blue Screen Viewer pointed to one of the RAID drivers, but not the one which actually makes the RAID array visible to Windows.
I downloaded a slightly later version from Biostar's website and forced an upgrade of them all from Safe Mode Device Manager.

System obviously then needed a re-start and with baited breath, I let it.
Seems to be a normal re-boot, albeit with a previous restore point activated, though only from just before I turned it off when we went away last week.

Only trouble is that there are now 3 Windows updates still in the queue to be installed.
I think I might wait until we have the next holiday planned, so that's set to Notify, but not Download or Install 

Next one is to give the thing a good workout with MemTest and risk re-installing Avast.
Do you have any idea why it seemed to prevent Crash Memory MiniDumps?

[essexboy]

A double fault occurs when an exception occurs while trying to call the handler for a prior exception. Normally, the two exceptions can be handled serially, however there are several exceptions that cannot be handled serially and in this situation the processor signals a double fault. The two primary causes for this are hardware and kernel stack overflows. Hardware problems are usually related to CPU, RAM, or bus. Kernel stack overflows are almost always caused by faulty kernel-mode drivers.

This is the 08 cause, so a RAM check with memtest may be in order.  Although as you have updated a RAID driver (low level) that may be the culprit

As for the memory dumps I have no idea as I can force a crash on my system and they work perfectly well

[peak4]

Cheers for the reply; FYI the 4 crash dumps I have are pretty much identical, barring the time stamp

Mini012614-04.dmp
26/01/2014 18:17:47   
UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP   
0x1000007f   
0x00000008   
0x80042000   
0x00000000   
0x00000000   
nvgts.sys   nvgts.sys+1d560   
NVIDIA® nForce(TM) Sata Performance Driver   
NVIDIA nForce(TM) SATA Driver   
NVIDIA Corporation   10.1.0.28 built by: WinDDK   32-bit      
c:\windows\Minidump\Mini012614-04.dmp   
2   15   2600   90,112   

The odd point about the dump is that it now quotes the latest version of the relevant driver i.e. 10.1.0.28
That's the one I've just updated to; when the crashes occurred, it was running 10.1.0.15 and was then recorded as such by Blue Screen Viewer, so that might be one to watch out for.

Any thought on why I can't disable auto re-boot on a stop error?

Now looking seriously at getting an SSD reasonably promptly and getting XP out of this RAID array  when I've proved the rest of this hardware.

[essexboy]

Are all your RAM sticks of the same rating ?   If you have more than one stick then remove one and see if that alters the behaviour

[peak4]

Yes, they were bought as a matched pair.All still seems quite stable at the moment, so I've just ordered a 250GB Samsung SSD. They seem to be the most reliable ones as far as I can tell.
A job for after the holiday I think though 

The offending drive, whilst it was loaded with the RAID drivers ,is actually one of the motherboard drivers anyway, so would have been loaded regardless.

Thanls for your assistance and ideas, back to planning the holiday for a while now.