How to manage Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)

In addiction to my previous post Windows XP Common Stop Messages, I'd like to give more info related to managing the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).

These errors show up at the worst possible times... usually after midnight. And there's always someone willing to call you in to solve this issue immediately.

A normal solution for is probably shutdown the server and restart, lose all your data and wait to see what happens. Maybe the problem will be resolved. But if you see it again, the same fantastic ( ... ) screen then you need to investigate the cause more thoroughly.

The first operation is identify the error message in the BSOD. This information is in the first part of the blue screen and contains an error code number, the addresses where the error occurred, and text where the type of error is reported.

Using this information, you can start the investigation.

Some resources are reported in my previous post and in some comments. See, for example :

Common XP Stop messages

XP Stop messages

A good suggestion is using the Debugging Tools for Windows 32-bit Version to analyze the dump generated during the crash.

Debugging Tools for Windows 32-bit Version

Other interesting sites that can help to understand what happens during a BSOD:

Introduction to Windows NT Stop Errors

Troubleshooting Windows Stop Messages

And, of course, looking for the error reported in the BSOD on the Microsoft Knowledge Base at this link :
Microsoft Knowledge Base

As you can see, there are many ways that you can come to understand and try to solve a BSOD. Maybe it's not really easy but with the right information, you can analyze the BSOD and try to solve the software issue.

Regards