Blue screen of death

[Scarlett]

My PC keeps crashing- usually when I try and add music tracks to burn in windows media player. A blue screen flashes up with text on it, but I can't read it as it disappears too quick. My sister says this is the blue screen of death! Is my PC dying, and if so, what can I do!!?

[vehelpfulguy]

What operating system?

How old is the PC?

This blue screen of death was common on older versions of Windows but less so on Windows XP.

[Scarlett]

I have Windows XP. The PC is probably 3 years old max.. I am on AOL, if that helps!

[rojash]

You say that it disappears to quickly to read. Is this because it just goes away, or because the PC then restarts itself?

[Scarlett]

It's because the PC restarts itself.

[stressed out]

Omg. Mine did this before as it was riddled with a bad virus and a friend of mine had to wipe the whole pc and re-install XP so i had lost everything. Anyway this has begun happening again but my blue screen stays long enough to read.. It just says that a serious error has occured with windows and needs to shut down and re-start.. Sometimes i turn on my pc just to see a black screen that says No operating system found!!
For the time being it still works most times but i will need to take it somewhere to fix but i dread losing everything i have on it as i have no idea how to Back Up Data.

Good Luck.

x

[rojash]

Right-click my computer and choose properties

On the advanced tab click the settings button in the Startup and recovery section.

Uncheck the box "Automatically restart" in the System Failure section.

Now the Bkue Screen of Death will remain and you will be able to read the error message. This should give you some idea of the cause of the problem.

As pcwork says, it's almost certainly a driver problem, but this is probably the quickest way to discover WHICH driver.