Sunday, January 25, 2009

Fix blue screen of death listing nvstor32.sys as the problem

I have an HP Pavilion dv9000 laptop, and in the last two weeks it's been experiencing the dreaded Microsoft blue screen of death at random. Every time it crashed, the data dump would start and I would see "nvstor32.sys" listed as the driver that caused the problem. After getting annoyed to the point where I had to fix it, I did a quick Google search and found a blog entry by someone having the same issue with a Pavilion dv6000. It seems to be caused by nvstor32.sys, which is an nVidia driver for your IDE controller. Changing the driver to the generic Microsoft driver seems to solve it. Here's how to change it on Windows Vista:

1. Right-click the My Computer icon and select Manage
2. Click on Device Manager in the left pane
3. Expand the "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" by clicking the + to the left of it
4. Look for the nVidia entry, which should be something like "NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller". Right-click it and go to Properties
5. To verify you selected the correct entry, go to the Driver tab and click on Driver Details. You should see nvstor32.sys listed in the driver files
6. On the Driver tab, click on Update Driver
7. Choose "Browse my computer for driver software"
8. Select "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer"
9. You should see an option called "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller". Select that and click Next

This will change it so the generic MS driver is used rather than the problematic nVidia nvstor32.sys driver. This is how I chose to fix my problem.

I did find another blogger who reported a software update would solve the problem. However, the download link he posted was to another blog, which then had a download link but that link wasn't to any official site. www.nvidia.com does provide software downloads, but the only ones that I could find appeared to require you to know what type of motherboard you have, and I didnt' feel like figuring that out. If you want to go that route, version 5.10.2600.995 is supposedly the one you want.

*UPDATE 2/5/09 - Since following these steps to change to the generic drivers on the day of the original post, I haven't experience the blue screen of death since. It hasn't quite been two full weeks yet, but prior to reverting to the generic drivers the BSOD would happen multiple times each day. I have experienced a few times where the computer will hang for a few minutes as if it's going to crash, but then it'll come back and act normally. 

14 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 2, 2010 at 2:41 PM

    Thanks so much for posting this. It definitely helped my client's computer!!

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  2. rslyghJanuary 3, 2010 at 6:25 PM

    You're welcome. I'm glad it helped

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  3. UnknownFebruary 6, 2010 at 1:59 PM

    I have the same laptop as you. I have been going NUTS about the blue screen. I have my fingers crossed

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  4. UnknownFebruary 6, 2010 at 2:00 PM

    I have the same exact model HP as you. The blue screen has been a roayl pain. I will do as you say here and keep my fingers crossed

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  5. UnknownApril 3, 2010 at 1:17 PM

    OMG, thank you so much. I have been dealing with this for a week, and it was getting to the point where I was threatening to kill the machine. I was getting so tired of seeing the BSOD.

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  6. AnonymousOctober 30, 2010 at 5:16 PM

    YES! So far, so good. I've been wrestling with this off and on for MONTHS. Thank you!

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  7. AnonymousJanuary 11, 2011 at 1:30 AM

    thanks a bunch i had been having that problem for the longest i was about to even order a new HDD thanks for saving me the money and trouble.

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  8. KaiFebruary 26, 2011 at 5:31 AM

    Thank-you so much for this (and for listing the instructions out so clearly). My Asus EEEBox 1501 which we use for most of our entertainment (attached to TV) crashed yesterday, and after much fiddling around repairing lost clusters, etc, I at least got it to reboot. The event file told the story, and your site helped fix it!

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  9. AnonymousApril 22, 2011 at 12:18 PM

    Thanks for the information! This worked perfectly to fix the same issue that we have been having with our Lenovo T61's with the factory Vista Restore disks...

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  10. AnonymousAugust 1, 2012 at 8:34 AM

    I haven't yet let it run for a while, but I figured I'd say thanks for the help and tips. My computer somehow had TWO versions of the same controller, the one you listed as good and the latest 6.whatever version, I chose to go the standard route for now.

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  11. AnonymousApril 9, 2013 at 5:00 AM

    Thanks, first link I found after googling the error & looks like its fixed.

    Cheers.

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  12. UnknownJune 12, 2013 at 2:41 AM

    This happened right after a update. But luckily, I found this fix quick.

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  13. AnonymousSeptember 24, 2013 at 7:47 AM

    THANK YOU! Trying to fix this for a while now

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  14. AnonymousDecember 23, 2013 at 11:12 AM

    You are awesome! Thanks for this tip. Helped us get this client's replacement PC deployed on time!!!

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