Hi,
I originally posted this on "Lockups & Freezes" but Dunidar suggested this might be the better forum. Following his suggestion, I have run SFC /SCANNOW in Safe Mode & no problems were reported, which makes it more likely that my problem does not arise in the OS driver wdf01000.sys that appears in every BSOD report. This makes it more likely that I need to be able to use System Restore to roll back the updates to the Intel drivers iaStorA.sys and iaStorF.sys, which were the two udates I installed before it all came unglued.
I'm sure that if I could load an OS from DVD this could be achiewved - however, the HP Recovery Diskd don't allow this as an option. The problem with the Erase & Reinstall option is that the back-up function only is willing to back up my drive F:\ which hAS only10% of my 4 years of data. (I do have Carbonte back-up of certain files, but that hasn't had a chance to operate reliably since the "ACPI Cokmpliant BIOS" started happening. An HP Tech has said that the fact that the Recovery disks are only willing to back-up F:\ means the replacement OS will be installed on F:\, laeaving my primary OS drive, C:\ intact. Can anyone provide me with any assurance that this will, in fact, be the case? If so, I'd be willing to risk it, as I'd then have an independent OS to run System Restore (although, I'm not sure a new OS on F:\ would be able to run System Restore on Restore Points established by the original OS on the C:\ drive. In any case, the following is my original post (with the names of the updated suspect files corrected.)
Basic Info - an HP/Compaq Elite 8200 Convertible Minitower with 2 extra SATA drives & a Creative SoundBlaster card installed.
Background: My system had begun going into BSOD every couple of days with a message that the BIOS was not "fully ACPI compliant." I contacted HP and was able to obtain & install the needed BIOS upgrade. Following this, I decided to do some housekeeping & checked for out-of-date drivers. I installed these one at a time, as I had a previous bad experience with updating too many drivers, particularly Intel chipset drivers, at a single time. When I finished the last update, which involved two drivers labeled iaStorA.sys and iaStorF.sys, if I recall correctly (I'm posting this from my PC at work, so I may have the names off by a character or so) my system began going BS after ~10 minutes or so. Nearly every BS referenced the MicroSoft system driver wdf01000.sys.
It is my belief that either wdf01000.sys became corrupted, or the last 2 updates were having a negative impact on the MS driver. Unfortunately, if I try to use System Restore to roll back the suspect updates, the system will BSOD ~1-2 minutes after the m essage "Restore is initializing" appears.
The only solution I can get from the HP Tech is to back up my data and then use the "Erase, Reformat & Reinstall" function from the Recovery Disks. Unfortunately, with a system that goes B S every 10 minutes, it is impossible to perform a reliable back-up for all 3 disks, while the Recovery Disk is only willing to back up my drive F:\, not my primary OS Drive, C:\ or my other drive, G:\ (the HP Recovery partition is drive D:\).
My questions are:
1. If the problem is a corrupted WDF01000.sys is it possible to obtain a reliable copy of & replace it? (The HP tech warned about the danger of obtaining a copy of a MicroSoft sysem file from the internet - a danger of which I was fully aware - but, isn't there at least one system in HP's possession running Windows 7 x64 professional? I should think a file supplied from HP would be sufficiently safe. However, when I raise the possibility with the tech, there is no response.)
2. If the problem stems from the last 2 Intel driver updates, is there a way to get a functional OS loaded from DVD that would peremit System Restore to run? My last system had Win 7 installed from MS media and, as I recall, once loaded, the use of System Restore was one of the repair options. The HP Recolvery disks only offer 2 choices - back-up (which would only cover drive F:\, with <10% of my 4+ years worth of data) or "Erase, Reformat & Reinstall." Following this course would put at risk ~90% of my data, not to mention the grief of reinstalling a great deal of software.
3. The HP tech tells me that, since Recovery is only willing to back up drive F:\, this is where the Recovered OS would be installed. This would give me the independently loaded OS I sought in question 2. However, I greatly fear that drive where recovery operated would be my primary OS drive, C:\. If this were the case, the result would be disastrous! I do have back-up via Carbonite, but I don't think this has been operating properly since the ACPI-related BSs began.
So -- any suggestions? Anything that gets me out of this problem without loss of data will be most sincerely appreciated!
Tom Filipi
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Win 7 x64 - Need to repair a single driver, but can't use System Restore
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