I am soon going to reboot my operating system. What do i need to do before reinstalling windows?

Question

I am reinstalling due to many many crashes due to IRQ problems (mismatches) after recieving some of these messages on a blue stop error screen - DRIVER_IRQL_LESS_THAN, IRQ_LESS_EQUAL_THAN and PAGE_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA.

The program memtest shows problems with my memory and so i need to know what do i need to uninstall (drivers, programmes eg Nero Burning Rom) before i reinstall Windows?

I have Windows XP Home Ed.

Then i have heard that i need to reassign IRQ's to each device individually to get rid of the mismatches. What do i need to go into and what do i need to do to assign these IRQs?

Please help as much as you can guys and gals

Cheers, Dave, UK

Answer 1

these error are related to ram



if your having memory problems

it may be you have a bad ram disk

The best way to know if you have a bad stick of RAM, or that is badly seated, is to try swapping them. If you have a lager ram amt and a smaler ram Place the large amt in slot one



if you dont know what ram you need

go to your manufacturer's site and get your system specs it will tell you what ram memmory sticks you need



and how much your allowed to add to your system



Before reinstalling Windows

have you done a check first

have you done defrag



have you tryed system restore



have you tryed inserting your xp disk then just repair Xp







have you installed any new drivers lately

to cause these errors if so roll back the driver

Answer 2

DO NOT FORMAT, READ FIRST..PROBABLY BIOS



To start with you can tell XP to sort itself, you go through the procedure to go for a fresh install booting form your XP cd, but you ask it to repair it, this is not the same as a repair via repair console, it will offer you this on a blue screen along with set-up fresh install, you can also instigate it to run if it is not showing by agreeing to fresh install, but on the next window after you have chose it take the repair option.



Have you used your MMC (right click my computer and go to manage and look at the system tools , namely the tab "event viewer", under this you will see in the drop down > application,Internet Explorer, Security, System. The tabs you are interested in are the Application and the system tab.



When you click these tabs you it will show you red crosses beside any problems, these can be clicked on to show you process or applications that cause problems and they give you error codes and a small description you can google the error codes to get more specific answers.



Your IRQ problem should be managed automatically by your operating system, you must have reconfigured them manually in Windows, IF YOU HAVEN'T then do not format your system, the problem is in your IRQ management found within your bios (this is most likely)



Make sure and have all your drivers for devices, if you don't note the device names and relevant models via you control panel>system>device manager, you will see them listed.



If you have added ram to your system recently or the problems started after you added ram it could be the latency between modules is mis-matching, try running on original module.

Over clocking can cause this or running the board at the wrong settings, try default bios also.



Make sure and get all your data, you value, thirdly if you don't have a legit copy of XP you will not get your updates from them.



If you get stuck email me [e-mail]

Answer 3

Make sure you download and put all the latest drivers on a disc for the new install. Also, remove any add on cards from your PC (modem, sound card, firewire card, etc.) Leave your graphics card in though. Install windows and let it recognize your graphics card and assign it it's resources (IRQ). Don't forget direct it to your disc when looking for a driver. When the complete install is done shut down the PC and then install another card (say, sound card) and reboot. Let windows do its thing. Continue doing one add in at a time until everything's in. I find that sometimes Windows screws up when assigning resources when it's doing everything at once. Also, doing it one card at a time may tell you if a part is not playing nice with Windows.

Answer 4

If memtest is showing memory errors, you probably don't need to reinstall Windows, just replace the memory. Go to www.memorygiant.com and let it scan your computer to see what memory you currently have installed and what you can replace it with. If you have more than one memory stick currently installed, try them one at a time to see which one is defective.

Answer 5

put xp disc in when is asks about partition select full format that will wipe your disk of all old files and format it to ntfs not fat32

Answer 6

you will need the program