Blue Screen

Can someone please help me with this one? I am completely in the dark when it comes to this. (Run Win 98SE.)

Came home from work last night to a blue screen. This morning, I awoke to one. Both times, only the reset switch will get me out. After reboot, something "updates system settings ". Strangely enough, after hitting reset, scandisk shows no errors. (manually run scandisk). Ran system file checker and all is well. I ran "The Cleaner" and "NAV ". Again, all is well.

After the first episode last night, I did a scanreg /restore and restored what I know to be a good registry. This morning, it still happened. Both times when I wasn't on the PC. After both times It looks like it's got something to do with my HackTracer firewall.

Message reads:

An exception OE has occured at 0028:C0092A43 in VXD HACKTRCR (01) + 0000132B. This was called from 0028:C001C3D4 in VXD NDIS (01) + 00004860. It may be possibly to continue manually.


I'm really calling on you people for this one. Have NO clue what to do.

Thanks,
Randy

 

LandShark;

I do not use HackTracer firewall, however I am wondering if you have some particular reason to leave your computer on and connected to the internet while you are sleeping. There are a lot of spammers and lamers who scan randomly looking for spam victims or open trojan ports which may be causing your errors. Being a firm believer in the theory that moving parts will not wear when they are not moving, I would turn the computer off at night.

 

Hi Landshark,
I'd be inclined to remove your firewall for elimination purposes. Have you thought of using Zonealarm? You can always put it back on once you get the bottom of the error?

Daizy

 

rcerrato,

Appreciate the advice but the subject of whether to run the PC 24/7 or not has been debated to death. I choose to run it. The real question is does anyone know how to translate the error message into something understandable.

Daizy,

I've run HackTracer for years. Tried ZA but found it pulled too many resouces for my liking. Personal choice, I guess. I could remove it and switch it for ZA. I could also remove and reinstall HT. I could be chasing this thing across the globe doing those kind of things and will if I must but.......

......surely someone here knows what the error message is saying and maybe has an inkling as to why Windows wants to update system settings after it happens. Given the information I supplied when I started this thread, does anyone here need more? If so, please post and I will supply it.

Otherwise, what on Earth is the error message relaying in human terms, other than the obvious? That something is wrong.

Anyone at all?

Randy

 

.surely someone here knows what the error message is saying and maybe has an inkling as to why Windows wants to update system settings after it happens.

The message is saying for sure that something is not working right. What I don't got the slightest idea.

But I do have an INKLING ( better lnown as A WAG ) that you may have something that is runniing on auto Pilot and making changes to the system.
Something that auto checks for updates maybe ? But this should not bother if you are not online at all times.

Maybe even something within Windows itself.

Windows wanting to update system settings sort of suggests that to me anyway.

Now my old standard reply. Use Startup Cop or msconfig and see what is ( or may be ) running in the background. And may be even shut a thingy or twoy down to see what transpires.

As to being on 24/7. I hope you are at least restating Windows at least once per day. Or running scanregw. to make the Registry backups. One never knows when one of them will be needed.

BTW. A little off topic. But how is the weather out your way. It can not make up its crazy mind here what season it wants to be.

BillyBob

 

BB to the Rescue!

What else is new?

I actually have nothing running in the background at all, BB, that I didn't have for ages now, successfully. That's why this is so highly unusual!

As for 24/7, you bet I reboot! A LOT! As per one of our conversations, I now even have a scanreg.exe shortcut on my Quick Launch as well. The old working registry copy? I haven't changed a darn thing in the system since then and have even restored it.

It's got me beat, BillyBob!

The weather? Just today it warmed up a bit from some 20 to 30 below stuff up here for a few weeks! Too cold for my liking.

Maybe there's a blue screen happening with the weather lately as well?

Thanks, buddy!

 

Hi again Landshark,
Sorry I wasn't of much help. I'm still looking. You'd certainly think someone wuld have had the same error wouldn't you? Closest I came was This One
Anything else, pertains to a nuke attack, but only for those running Windows 95 or later.
I only suggested switching to zonealarm purely for testing purposes. To see if that got rid of the error.


Good luck with this. I'll post if I ever do find something more concrete.

Daizy

 

Know nothing about either but these google topics may help turn on a light bulb:[Of special note is the first link supplied by "Google"]
http://www.google.com/search?num=10...&oe=ISO-8859-1&newwindow=1&q=hack+tracer+ndis

Just passing on the links. Perhaps a trip to the "manufacturer support site of "Hack Tracer" may have a bbs with those more familiar with red flags that one should worry about or a found fix for the known problem mentioned by google. Looks like there may be a history of periodic problems between Hack Tracer Ndis and Norton. Maybe an update somewhere along the line caused some hiccups.

As food for thought.......
Run SFC.exe and check to see if drivers mentioned by the links have been corrupted or overwritten with the older fussy/incompatible ones.

 

Everyone,

A friend of mine sent this URL to me:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q243199

Not sure as to whether or not it applied to me, and I saw the "only if" words there, I installed it. I was hoping it would would work and thought that if it made matters worse I could backpeddle my way out.

This morning, no blue screen. Interestingly enough, it seems to have a lot in common with the URL goddez posted, if I'm not mistaken.

Time will tell, but could you have a look at what I installed versus what goddez posted? Maybe you can make more sense out of it than I did.

Let's see if this fixed it or not. I DID ping a couple of IPs from the Hack Tracer log last night as well. Maybe I scared someone off???? Beats me.

Like I said, time will tell. I'll keep you posted. No pun intended.

Randy

 

Now that is an excellent thought.

Not one or the other by itself but the COMBINATION of various running items. Not only programs but programs and the OS.

BillyBob

 

I'm guessing with the VXD error that there is a scan by Norton or filter by the firewall going on when autoupdates are occuring (the 24/7 drawback, if enabled)

I've seen other app's lockup (WordPerfect, Word, etc) but the error message was VXD from our VirusScan. I'd check the settings for Windows autoupdating (times, permissions) and the scheduling for Scans..(on demand, on d/l, per day...) and see if there isn't a coinciding event.

This has happened when either a VirusScan corrupts a file instead of scanning, or "sanitizes" a potentially unsafe file but lets it through. You end up with a file that you can't tell is corrupted, but....BSOD! Firewall may do the same....

If you can update HackScan or do a clean reinstall and doublecheck your settings, you may be able to go 24/7 without the heartache...

 

Problem Solved!

I had downloaded and installed from where I posted a URL before.

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...b;EN-US;q243199

Actually, the friend was Daizy and she emailed it to me before I even checked any answers to this thread. We are local friends up here. I hesitated and then went for it.

No more problems here at all.

Special thanks to Daizy. One VERY smart woman!

Thanks all around to everyone who pondered and/or posted! You folks are great!

Oh, and as far as what cbitguru posted: Nothing was updating unless I did it, other than Norton AV definitions, set to be applied "without interrupting me" and scheduled as well for once a night for good measure.

Now can anyone tell me what happened?

 

Well I am sure gald to read that problem has been solved and you were able to get rid of the VERY UN-WELCOME BSOD.

BillyBob