Laptop dying?

[Unfocused]

My aunt asked me to help her with her old laptop which bluescreened while she was using it and then bluescreened each time she tried to boot it (also in safe mode).

Since the error was "STOP: 218 {registry file failure}" I popped in a WinXP CD I had at home, did a chkdsk and then performed the steps listed on Microsoft's website here. The system booted succesfully, but Windows wouldn't let me log in in normal mode, because it was bothering me about some sort of need to activate for some reason and since I didn't have the CD it was installed from, didn't want to call Microsoft and wasn't even sure if the system was legal, I just accessed the system in safe mode. My mission: move all the files from "My Documents" to an external drive.

On my first attempt, as soon as I clicked on the folder, the system did a BSOD, ran chkdsk and logged into Windows. This time, I was able to access My Documents, but when I tried to copy all of the files, I got some sort of error that a file is not available/can't be read/something to that effect. So I selected the first few folders and managed to copy them to the external drive. When I selected the next group of folders, after a few minutes I got a BSOD and now I can't boot the system at all - it tries to do a chkdsk and either freezes, BSODs by itself, or BSODs after I skip the chkdsk.

I used Ultimate Boot CD and ran two HDD diagnostic programs, both of which say the HDD is fine (then why couldn't it copy some files and BSODed while copying others :?).

Now I'm running Memtest86 and I'm getting a wall of errors. It says the laptop has 503MB of memory and during the test, the memory started failing at ~256MB, it's now at 318MB (15 minutes later), and registered 3.6 million errors already. So probably the second RAM stick is borked. But if that is the case, why did the laptop act as if that was a HDD failure, corrupting the page file and having problems copying files? Or is it perhaps a coincidence, that the system went corrupt and now the RAM stick died?

Does anyone have an idea of what might be going on here?

 

[Hectic Glenn]

If you leave it for a good few hours and it works again (lets you at least get into Windows before BSOD) the freezing is probably down to overheating. When the laptop has warmed up enough it crashes and the next time you try, the laptop is still warm so crashed almost instantaneously. Have you checked the thermal paste on the CPU? A laptop with XP should be old enough where the paste is probably no longer doing it's job and the CPU is overheating. The same is true of the GPU chip which is probably in series with the CPU using the same heatsink, so check both.

It is possible that enough damage may have been done with heat on these parts to have made them hugely unstable and not worth your time. Also the solder after heating and cooling over long periods can eventually lose their lead content if poorly made, reducing thermal conductivity and causing instant overheating.

It may be too difficult to remedy the problem and if your aunt is only interested in retrieving her files it may be best to try a USB 2.5" dock for the laptop HDD before your further poking really does corrupt it! Something like this, but cheaper - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-008-SH&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=72

 

[Unfocused]

Yes, it looks like the USB dock would be the best and only option.

I also tried using an Ubuntu Live CD and some other Linux distribution to get the files off the Windows partition, but they didn't want to load (even when I chose the most basic boot options, that should load into 128MB RAM).

Thanks for the response. :thumbs: