Win XP freezes at mup.sys

I am trying to help out a friend with a Seagate Barracuda 80Gb HDD that has XP Home SP2 installed. It boots to the Windows screen and then reboots. Safe mode stalls at mup.sys and then reboots. Tried to boot from the XP CD and as soon as any option is chosen the system reboots. Disabled autoreboot and the BSOD happens with the message IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL STOP:0X000000D1 (0XDADA7008,0X00000002,0X00000000,0XB9E5D416) NTFS.SYS ADDRESS B9E5D416 at B9E5C000 I have removed the hard drive from his system and put it into a cradle with a USB 2.0 adaptor and attempted to read it on my computer system. As soon as the disk drive is detected my system throws a BSOD with the same error message. There are a lot of photos on the drive so I would really like to be able to help him out I cant get into recovery console or get to repair the install.The crashes started to happen about 3 days after SP2 was installed. Initially the system would reboot itself a couple of times and then go OK for a couple of days. No consistent program or task being done. It slowly deteriorated to its present unbootable state over a period of 2 months. I tried booting my computer with the drive installed into the USB port and it allowed me to log into my windows but then crashed as soon as the drive became active (the IDE connection on the cradle has an activity light) Fault message the same. Tried removing my own hard drive and installing the faulty one. Same fault message. Reinstalled my drive as master and faulty as slave. Would not boot went straight to BSOD same fault message. Does the file NTFS.Sys have some bearing on this? It seems to me that the drive is OK it is just the OS is corrupted at the boot level but is corrupted in a way that my OS senses that there is a danger to it and it shuts down for safety? Is that logical or indeed possible?
Any suggestions?

 

Computer locked up at MUP.SYS

Hi !

I hope someone has the solution to this problem, Not very technical so in plain english would be greatfully accepted...

We have the Mup.sys problem on one of our pcs, we dont want to format it as it as a lot of family pictures etc on it...

What we dont have is a boot disc, it has gone missing, we can only get to the options of safe mode, last best known and start as normal... Whichever we press we get the mup.sys and it freezes...

We can get into the bios page using F8 but dont know what to do there...

We really would appreciate any help, even if its not good news, just any info on how to resolve this problem asap...

Thankyou in advance all you techies out there.......hoepfully someone knows...

Also if I take it into a shop will they be able to fix it or is this a problem that cannot be fixed...

Best regards,
Leyly

 

Hello Gaza,

In searching this problem - mup.sys in google, there are a lot of causes for this, but the one consistent theme is hardware and SP2. And there are indications that its not mup.sys that my be the problem, but that its just the last file to load.

If you can get into the BIOS, disable USB, and see whether you can then at least boot into safe mode and then maybe use System Restore or do a OS repair.

Regards - Charles

 

Hi ! Thankyou for replying...

I got into the system and disabled the usb but it still did the same, stop at MUP.SYS ... I notice above it a driver file called NV .... could this be the Nvidia graphics card by any chance, will it do anything if I remove it and put it back in... at this point I hav'nt a clue but once again, any help at all would be appreciated...

Best regards,
Leyly

 

Thanks Charles. As Leyly has said disabling the USB did not make any difference. I am currently working with a DOS based data recovery program which has at least allowed me to see the files on the drive. Unfortunately my experience in command-line programs is limited so it is slow going. Can you tell me if it is possible to repair the XP install from DOS? Also I noticed that the AUTO EXEC BAT FILE was empty. Is that normal?
Leyly, If I manage to get mine fixed I will give you detailed instructions but don't go playing with DOS programs unless someone gives you plenty of help as it could possibly lose the data permanently.
Gary

 

Hi Gary,

If you can get to a command line prompt, then give sfc - system file checker a shot. It replaces corrupt system files with the original files from the XP OS disc or the i386 folder. How to: http://www.helpwithwindows.com/WindowsXP/howto-24.html

Also System Restore from a command line prompt http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304449&sd=tech

I looked at mine - XP Home SP2
Pasting here:
AUTOEXEC.NT in \system32\ There is another copy in \WINDOWS\repair
@echo off

REM AUTOEXEC.BAT is not used to initialize the MS-DOS environment.
REM AUTOEXEC.NT is used to initialize the MS-DOS environment unless a
REM different startup file is specified in an application's PIF.

REM Install CD ROM extensions
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\mscdexnt.exe

REM Install network redirector (load before dosx.exe)
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\redir

REM Install DPMI support
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\dosx

REM The following line enables Sound Blaster 2.0 support on NTVDM.
REM The command for setting the BLASTER environment is as follows:
REM SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330
REM where:
REM A specifies the sound blaster's base I/O port
REM I specifies the interrupt request line
REM D specifies the 8-bit DMA channel
REM P specifies the MPU-401 base I/O port
REM T specifies the type of sound blaster card
REM 1 - Sound Blaster 1.5
REM 2 - Sound Blaster Pro I
REM 3 - Sound Blaster 2.0
REM 4 - Sound Blaster Pro II
REM 6 - SOund Blaster 16/AWE 32/32/64
REM
REM The default value is A220 I5 D1 T3 and P330. If any of the switches is
REM left unspecified, the default value will be used. (NOTE, since all the
REM ports are virtualized, the information provided here does not have to
REM match the real hardware setting.) NTVDM supports Sound Blaster 2.0 only.
REM The T switch must be set to 3, if specified.
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330 T3

REM To disable the sound blaster 2.0 support on NTVDM, specify an invalid
REM SB base I/O port address. For example:
REM SET BLASTER=A0

I don't use it - the REM lines are non-executable, they are remarks.

I can't really answer your question about whether its significant if empty.




Hello Leyly,

If you want to try uninstalling the graphics card, then in Safe Mode go into the Device Manager and uninstall - reboot, the OS will re-detect it.

If you have an older card to replace it, try that. That was one of the fixes in my search on this problem.

Regards - Charles