BSOD, Can't restart XP normal or safe modes

[JAFL]

I'm hoping someone here might be able to steer me in the right direction here. I have a situation right now on my 2006 Dell E1505 laptop (with Windows XP Home Edition) where I can't restart the computer. I have been getting BSOD'S for about a year, off and on.

Last night I got another BSOD and tried to fix it. It said: Driver_corrputed_mmpool. I've been getting this same message since last summer. I ran verifier.exe at the advice of someone online. Upon reboot it indicated a problem with iomdisk.sys. I removed the driver. (I figured this was from an old Iomega zip drive I had installed on the laptop about the same time I started getting the bsod's). Afterwards, I also did a search for that file name and removed two files. About an hour later I got the same bsod again. So, I restarted the computer and almost immediately a bsod came up. Attached:





I tried restarting the computer in safe mode and last best known configuration, but both times the bsod shown above came up after selecting those modes.

I want to restart the computer and not lose any programs or files, and I don't have the OS disk, resource disk or drivers/utilities. Dell did not give me these when I bought the computer, so I called Dell this morning and they are mailing them to me in 2 to 3 days.

I did a bunch of research last night about this and came up with the following course of action. I'm hoping maybe some people here might be able to tell me if this is my best option:

1) To be safe and save any files first, create a boot disk using a free Linux distro live cd (download from kubuntv website). I have no idea how to do this. Supposedly I can use this to get into my C and save some work externally?

2) After I get my OS install disk, I should do a "repair-install", instead of a reinstall. Supposedly just doing a repair-install will save my programs and files, and the most I'll have to do is re-update some drivers and utilities after I get the computer back up and running? I read that it's better to do a repair-install than use a recovery disk (recovery console) if I want to save my files?


While Dell is sending my Windows XP Home OS disk later this week, I do have a Windows XP home OS disk from another computer that I thought I would try so I could save some time, but I'm assuming I can't use someone's else's because the registry keys are different? At this point I'm just playing it safe and waiting until I get the actual disk copy for my computer.


Anyhow, I'm all ears if anyone is kind enough to offer some other suggestions or any advice. I'm a novice at this stuff so please keep that in mind.

Thank you!

 

[JHM]

It probably won't help; but if you are going to go deleting files that pertained to that zip drive you no longer use, you should also open the MS Registry editor, (which you will find buried in the system 32 folder in "Windopes", - NO shortcut to it, just a little hidden treasure supplied by MS), and double click it, then when it opens, click on the "Edit" Menu. When that opens, click on find, which will open a popup asking what you want to find. Type in the name associated with that zip drive, then click find next. That will find you the first registry entry pertaining to said drive, which should be safe to delete at this point. Then click "Find Next" and delete that one too. Keep doing that till you have cleaned out all references to said zip drive.

 

[JAFL]

It probably won't help; but if you are going to go deleting files that pertained to that zip drive you no longer use, you should also open the MS Registry editor, (which you will find buried in the system 32 folder in "Windopes", - NO shortcut to it, just a little hidden treasure supplied by MS), and double click it, then when it opens, click on the "Edit" Menu. When that opens, click on find, which will open a popup asking what you want to find. Type in the name associated with that zip drive, then click find next. That will find you the first registry entry pertaing to said drive, which should be safe to delete at this point. Then click "Find Next" and delete that one too. Keep doing that till you have cleaned out all references to said zip drive.

Thanks JHM. I think this is a very real possiblity. I'll give it a try once I get the system up and running. I came across a guy on youtube who had the same problem, just after uninstalling something like I did (he also suspects it's a registry issue):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nse0tDaQF1I&feature=related

 

[JHM]

Another trick worth trying is clear the bios. Some mobos require that to be done whenever there is a hardware change. Might also use the registry editor to delete all references in the registry to the names of the files that you deleted.

 

[JAFL]

UPDATE: Situation was resolved by performing a repair install from the recovery disk.

Thanks for everyone's input. I may still go back and try to delete anything involving iomega.