The Ultimate Guide To Understand Blue Screen Of Death

Written by John Harris, Updated on October 25, 2023

The acronym of BSOD is Blue Screen of Death or Blue Screen of Doom. This techie is closely associated with the Windows operating system family. The BSOD is nothing but a blue screen displaying error messages and codes stating that the operating system is about to crash. The BSOD also indicates that the unsaved data, information, and processes are transformed and saved in a RAW format file due to an unexpected crash in the operating system. This saving process will help the user recover their data in the near future.

History:

On searching the source for this blue screen error, IBM developers first cited it in IBM OS/2. The early Windows used compilers developed by IBM. In this way, it slipped into the Windows family. The first version of Windows to be developed with BSOD is Windows 1.0. The Windows 3.0 users stated this screen as a “Ghost screen” in humor. The name is because there is no chance of any repair process being possible to the Windows operating system after the BSOD at that time.

Later, after the computer hardware and operating systems improved, the BSOD we use now existed. Different members of the Windows family use a wide variety of BSOD. Some differ by colors and some by error codes used in it. Apart from the blue screen, there are the Red Screen of Death (RSOD) and Black Screen of Death (BSOD).

Other Types:

The RSOD is used in the Windows Vista operating system, particularly in Beta versions of Vista. These RSODs were introduced to differentiate the boot time dump errors found before loading the Windows Vista operating system.

The Black Screen of Death is the same as the BSOD. In order to avoid confusion, the black screen of death is called Blsod or Ksod. This Blsod is found in Windows 3.x versions and some game consoles. This indicates that the error occurred while executing a DOS-based network application.

Functions of BSOD:

The basic function of BSOD is to display the error code in an emergent situation. By default, the Windows operating system will keep records and logs of all events in a hierarchical structure. The kernel process is the root or parent process for this hierarchy. The other processes are just child processes. In case any of the kernel processes is obstructed or if the requested root process resource is unavailable, there occurs a conflict among the processes, and the process that started the conflict is registered as a source of the operating system crash and will be displayed in coded format to the user.

The BSOD codes are named STOP codes. This BSOD code varies among the Windows family. For example, the format of BSOD code used in the Windows NT operating system is.

STOP: 0x0000008a (0x0000000000000003, 0x0000000000000000, 0xfffffa800a1206f0, 0x000007fbba710218)

The first part directly specifies the process for the error, and the other things are additional information regarding the error.

Later, the operating systems after Windows NT used only the single-part error code. Also, they don’t provide any metadata about the error.

Detailed cram on BSOD codes:

Consider that error message of Windows NT because viewing it lets us grasp BSOD codes of all other Windows versions, too.

STOP: 0x0000008a (0x0000000000000008, 0x0000000000000000, 0xfffffa800a1206f0, 0x000007fbba710218)

  • The first part is the actual error message for the OS crash
  • The second part refers to the process modules that are loaded into memory previously by the kernel
  • The third part indicates modules that are ready to be loaded into the memory
  • The fourth one is the current status of the kernel debugger

Windows versions after Windows NT will display only the first part alone. And it will be of the binary value ranging from 0x00000001 to 0x0000005F. The Kernel debugger and the memory dump were the only processes that will be in execution at BSOD. Apart from the error codes, some messages are also available that are displayed along with these codes. These error messages are separated by underscore instead of white spaces.

To recover data after system crash, refer to this page.

The messages are …

  • KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR: It indicates that the requested kernel page is unreadable.
  • NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM: Hard drive corruption
  • BAD_POOL_HEADER: It shows that the OS is crashed because of recently installed programs or modified security settings
  • UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP: RAM device failure or use of two irrelevant SIMMs in PC.
  • INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE: HDD failure or HDD interface failure
  • REGISTRY_ERROR: OS Unable to read data from the registry
  • IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL: Unsupported device drivers.

Do Note: The above-mentioned are some of the most common Blue Screen of Death errors. There are more than 230+ reported errors Windows users encounter as part of BSOD.

How To Fix Blue Screen of Death?

You can try the following troubleshooting solutions to fix the error.

  1. Remove all the connected external storage devices and other peripherals.
  2. Update the BIOS, Windows OS, and drivers.
  3. Scan, find, and remove any viruses and malware.
  4. Restore your System Settings.
  5. Run SFC Scan.
  6. Boot your system into Safe Boot Mode.
  7. Repair Corrupted or Damaged System Files on Windows.
  8. Restore Computer to Default Factory Settings
  9. Reinstall Windows OS.

If you have lost files after encountering the BSOD or while fixing the BSOD. Then worry not.

You can use specialized data recovery tools like Remo Recover. Refer to this comprehensive article to discover all possible ways to recover files from Windows.

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