Windows XP Crashing? Try These Tips.

You stayed up all night typing in that 40 page essay for English class. All of a sudden, your monitor flashes, disk drive whirs and your computer reboots out of the blue. Windows XP has just crashed. What will you do? If you are like most Windows XP users, you will reboot your computer and try again. Minutes later, Windows crashes again. At this point, frustrated and upset you find this article. Finding the problem to why Windows is crashing is not easy. But there are somethings you can do to help diagnose it.

Startup And Recovery

We want to see why Windows XP is crashing. In order to see this, we have to enable error and debugging information to appear on your screen.

• Go to the Control Panel and click the System icon.
• Click the Advanced tab and then in the Startup and Recovery group, click the Settings button
• In the Systems failure group, uncheck the Automatically Restart checkbox. This will force Windows XP to not reboot and present the error on the screen.
• Check the Write an event to the system log as well

Turn On The Blue Screen Of Death

Now that Windows will display the blue screen of death reboot your computer and start using it. When Windows crashes again, the BSOD will appear providing you with useful information to help diagnosing your problem. After this message: "A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer" There is a name of a computer application or module. Take a piece of paper and pen and write down the name of this program. This is the cause of your problem.

Did You Install A New Hardware Recently?

If you installed a new Windows program or hardware device recently, Windows may be incompatible with the driver or program. Most of the time these types of errors occur due to hardware drivers that are older than the operating system. They also could have bugs in them. To determine if there is a faulty hardware device in your computer, right click on My Computer and select properties. Click on the Hardware tab and choose Device Manager. All devices in your system are listed here. Click on the "+" boxes for each device and see if there are any errors. At this time, it is best to reinstall the software for the hardware device and attempt to run Windows. It is possible that the file(s) have become corrupt. If it happens again, you will need to go to the manufacturer's website and download a newer driver.

Recover Windows

If you still haven't been able to solve your problem, your other recourse is to attempt to recover the operating system. Place the original Windows XP CD into your CD drive and reboot your computer. When the system reboots, a menu will appear allowing you install Windows. At this point, type "R" for recovery. Windows will ask you to choose the location of where your existing copy exists on your computer. Type in the number and your password then let Windows attempt to recover from the error.

Faulty Hardware Device

If all else fails, its likely that your hardware device is faulty. For example, your printer or CD drive no longer works. Determine this from the name of the program described above and replace the hardware. Make sure that you remove the old hardware device and programs associated with it. You do this by going to the Control Panel and clicking on "Add or Remove Programs".