Hello. Today, I'm helping my friend, who has the following laptop computer: Dell Inspiron 1150 with XP.

She is getting BSOD upon turning the laptop on. She can get into the menu that gives you the choice to go into safe mode, etc, but she has tried all of the options (safe mode, safe mode with networking, etc.) but still gets the BSOD. BSOD give these codes:

STOP: 0x000000BE (0x8050B73E, 0x0050B121, 0xF9680410, 0x0000000B)

At the top of the BSOD, it says the usual about detecting a problem and windows has been shut down to prevent damage. Below that line, it says this:

An attempt was made to write to read-only memory.

She advised: no new hardware, there was no new antivirus installed (she said that there was one installed, but it may have been expired), she does not have the XP disk.

As always, thanks for the help !!!!

Please read this tutorial, and do a memtest:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic207910.html

I am unable to force boot from CD/DVD to do the memory test. I know that the machine is capable of it, as I used the Kaspersky Rescue CD on it. This rescue CD removed A LOT of viruses, but I'm pretty sure there are a lot left. I was unable to do an update on the rescue CD, so it was out of date.

I will try to burn another CD from my computer, then put it into the other to try the memtest again. I'll post again in a little bit.

OK.

I am running a memtest now off of a Dr. Web rescue CD. I tried the other and it would not boot up.

Ok. Let me know how it goes.

How long do I need to let this memtest continue?

Until it finishes. It will usually let you know, then display a report.

Ok. Thanks. It's at 53 % now (don't know if that number means anything or not relative to the entire test).

It's done now, "Pass complete, no errors"

Seems like a hardware issue. Did this laptop have any hardware issues before it ceased to boot?

She said no.

These are links to Anti-virus vendors that offer free LiveCD or Rescue CD files that are used to boot from for repair of unbootable and damaged systems, rescue data, scan the system for virus infections. Burn it as an image to a disk to get a bootable CD. All (except Avira) are in the ISO Image file format. Avira uses an EXE that has built-in CD burning capability.

• Avira AntiVir Rescue System - Tutorial for Avira Rescue CD.
  If you encounter problems running the Rescue Disk, you can get further assistance at the Avira Support Forum.
  
• Dr Web LiveCD. Be sure to print out and follow the instructions provided in the User Manual.
  
• F-Secure Rescue CD - Rescue CD 3.01 released.
  Video: How to Remove Malware with F-Secure Rescue CD
  If you encounter problems running the Rescue CD, you can get further assistance at the F-Secure Support Forum.
  
• BitDefender LiveCD - Index of /rescue_cd
  If you encounter problems running the Rescue CD, you can get further assistance at the BitDefender Support Forum.
  
• Kaspersky RescueDisk - Index of /devbuilds/RescueDisk/
  If you encounter problems running the RescueDisk, you can get further assistance at the Kaspersky Support Forum.
  

If you are not sure how to burn an image, please read How to write a CD/DVD image or ISO. If you need a FREE utility to burn the ISO image, download and use ImgBurn.

Let me know how it goes.

I've tried Dr. Web and Avira. In the case of Avira, I cannot view the entire screen, so I can't get to the "button" to start the scan. With Dr. Web, I could not get the computer to recognize (or boot up from ) the CD. It just gave the blue screen right away, whereas in the case of Avira and Kaspersky, it actually booted up from the CD. I'll try the others. If they don't work, I'm thinking that will be a good stopping point. Kaspersky actually found a lot of viruses, but I could not tell if they were removed or not.

Oh ok. Let me know what happens.