Question : Vista & PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_ARE<wbr />A

Good evening/good morning/good afternoon experts.

I have a friends laptop (Gateway MX8734) running Windows Vista HP 32bit and I am trying to resolve a "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA" BSOD that is happening from every angle. Her story is she was working on some things on the couch and her son being annoying popped the DVD drive in and out a few times putting the disc in and taking it out and a few minutes later the laptop started running "weird" and things weren't working so she restarted the computer and since that point it will not successfully load Windows without a PAGE_FAULT BSOD. There is no file or driver listed just PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA, the normal BSOD text and a stop error starting with 0X00000050.

When the laptop is started it goes right to a black & white "Windows Error Recovery" screen with two options; (1) Launch Startup Repair (recommended) and (2) Start Windows Normally. Both of those result in making it to the Windows loading screen with the moving green bars and then results in the PAGE_FAULT BSOD. If I press F8 to get to the other start-up options every option will cause the PAGE_FAULT BSOD around the same time. Also, if I try inserting and booting off of the Vista DVD that came with the laptop, a Vista Business DVD of mine, or a retail Windows 7 Professional DVD of mine they will all result in the PAGE_FAULT BSOD as well. Same with the Windows Vista Recovery DVD from Microsoft.

I've spent quite a bit of time reading up on the PAGE_FAULT BSOD and usually it sounds like a software issue but some appear to be bad RAM or hard drives. I have tested all the memory with Memtest86+ and tested the hard drive with GRC SpinRite and both result in no issues at all. I also tried running the system with one stick of RAM and then the other; and then in different slots but all still result in the same BSOD.

I am at a loss here and I don't know what to try next. I have never seen a system refuse to boot off of the different versions of media like this and refuse to start up into some sort of safe or recovery mode. Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot further would be greatly appreciated. I will only be up for about an hour yet this evening. This thing has done me in for the night.

Answer : Vista & PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_ARE<wbr />A

I couldn't boot from any media before without a BSOD... For some reason I always feel like I am repeating myself when I come here.

For future reference copying NFTS.SYS from the recovery partition and replacing the current NTFS.SYS in C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\ solved the problem and allowed me to get the system started again. After that running a chkdsk on the drive didn't find any errors but after normal maintenance and updating of the software the system appears to be running normally again.