Windows 7 (Home Premium) -- No Login Screen

Technology and Gaming Help and Support
#1

Okay, this is new. And frustrating.

I was using my desktop (HP p6310f) and everything was going swimmingly until I received a blue screen out of nowhere. “BAD_POOL_CALLER”. Thought maybe it was a transitory thing and rebooted.

I began to look at the reasons something like this would happen online when I got another blue screen. “A device driver attempting to corrupt the system has been caught. The faulty driver currently on the kernel stack must be replaced with a working version.”

:expressionless:

So, anyway, I tried to boot into safe mode. Windows did not show a log-in screen. I could not pull up Task Manager via the usual steps (CTRL-ALT-DEL or CTRL-SHIFT-ESC). I know Windows is running, at least in a limited fashion because if I push the Shift key five times, I get the sticky-keys dialog. But that’s the only thing I can do.

I’ve tried to System Recovery, I’ve tried to go back to multiple restore points, and nothing seems to be working.

Does anyone have any ideas? I don’t particularly want to wipe and reinstall Windows.

#2

Based on the “bad_pool_caller”, it sounds like it could be a bad driver (as the error message states) but the second error and your issue with the logon screen is possibly a bit different. If you have more than one stick of RAM in that machine, I’d pull them all out and try booting the machine with only one stick at a time installed. I’d give safe mode another try as well, perhaps see if you can identify the faulty driver from the Event Viewer.

#3

I have been able to make some progress with system recovery tools via mashing F8 while loading Windows.

The RAM is not at issue because I’ve run many RAM tests including memtest86 and they’ve passed with flying colors.

System Restore is being finicky. It says that it can’t access a particular file possibly because of an anti-virus, but as I am running this via F8->System Recovery, I don’t see how that’s possible. Prior to this, I was using “avast!”.

UPDATE: I am copying all my files on the primary drive over to a backup drive just in case something happens and I do need to wipe the primary drive and start over…

#4

if safe mode worked you could simply create another user account or enable Administrator, this sounds like something messed with the drivers and windows had to stop some essential services, I would suggest a reinstall (format recommended)

unless you can run cmd somehow and launch services.msc or gpedit.msc

try shift+f10 or F11

#5

UPDATE: I bit the bullet.

Seeing that there was no way to get around it, I used the system recovery tools to open a command prompt (launching services.msc or gpedit.msc did not work), copied all the data from the primary drive to a secondary drive, disconnected the secondary drive, and wiped the primary drive, and reinstalled Windows.

Installing updates now then will reconnect the secondary drive and move the data back.

Thanks for attempts at assistance, folks.

#6

Every so often it’s good to have a fresh start. From what I’ve read, in Windows 8 Microsoft plans to include an “inplace install”, better than Windows 7, that will be like a “reset” button for the OS. Will have to see :slight_smile:

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