visitors: Thanks for coming by. If you’ve experienced the problem described below, please leave a comment and Digg this story. Dell is aware of the problem identified here, but rather than take the proactive step of notifying customers who purchased susceptible systems — namely, data loss and/or a system crash from which you potentially cannot recover — they are addressing the problem only too late: when people call to report the problem.
This thread contains hundreds of comments now, some of which ultimately describe a different problem than the one originally addressed here. In short, IASTOR.SYS is a disk controller driver. Older versions of it are susceptible to errors which can cause problems with your hard drive(s).
Update in June 2008: This post has steadily drawn over 10,000 visits per month for the last year. Dell, if you’re out there and you’d like me to link to some concise troubleshooting information on your site, please email me at ydeologi [at] gmail [dot] com.
Summary as of 12/28/06: IASTOR.SYS is a driver provided by Intel to Dell as an interface to the on-board Intel storage controller used on motherboards in Dell computers. Simply put, it is software that allows Windows XP to communicate with a computer’s hard drive. Since I posted this article in April, I’ve had over 6,000 hits specifically on this topic, all from people researching the same basic problem I encountered early this year. Some salient points:
- So far, it has only been reported as a problem in Dell systems; I don’t know if the driver is being used in other manufacturers’ systems, but I suspect that if it is, the version being provided to Dell by Intel is different.
- This problem has been reported on many of Dell’s desktop product lines, so it is not limited to one type of system.
- Sometime in late 2005/early 2006, Dell began offering an option called “DataSafe”, where a PC is shipped with two hard drives arrayed in what’s called a RAID mirror; each hard drive contains an exact copy of the other so that in the event that one fails, the other lives on (and your data with it). To implement this, a few RAID compatible components are needed: the disk controller, the system BIOS, and a Windows device driver. RAID is very old, tested technology; the only new concern here is Dell’s use of it in their home market PCs. From what I’ve observed, the problem certainly seems to be most common in systems shipped with DataSafe enabled, but because the new device driver for the controller is also used for systems that weren’t ordered with the DataSafe option, the problem can show up for systems without DataSafe as well.
- It has been reported as a conflict with many different system devices, but especially video cards, sound cards, and network interfaces.
- Manufacturers like Dell depend on their suppliers to provide both reliable hardware components and software drivers to operate them. But companies like Dell are also responsible for testing the reliability of such components and their interoperability prior to releasing them for sale.
- Systems with bad drivers have been reportedly shipped as early as January 2006 and as late as October 2006.
- If this is, in fact, a problem for every Dell system shipped with IASTOR.SYS this year, then even after Dell and Intel work out a patch, it will have to be installed on every affected computer, or those computers will remain at risk for data loss and system failure.
- Intel released updated drivers in May 2006 which many have reported fix the problem, but Dell had not updated the drivers on their own website until posting a solution in late October/early November 2006. It is possible that even the drivers Intel posted in January fixed this issue, but that is not confirmed.
begin original story: If you have a Dell Dimension E510 or 5150 purchased in the last few months, you may experience a BSOD (blue screen of death) error in Windows XP related to a resource sharing conflict. I’ve read about errors related to IASTOR.SYS, an SATA controller driver, coming up a few different ways, but never quite in the way I saw it recently: under Windows XP Media Center with an SATA RAID mirror and an ATI TV Tuner add-on card.After the Windows splash screen, you’ll get a BSOD with a DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error focusing on IASTOR.SYS, probably with stop code 0x000000D1. After enough reboots, the system might not even show the blue screen error, just reboot. Safe Mode doesn’t load the OS, either — just reboots. Booting into a recovery console is not helpful for rebuilding. Trying to update the IASTOR driver (which pertains to system with the 82801GR chipset, or related) manually without the OS accomplishes nothing.
Dell’s support technicians only recommend backing up your data and reinstalling. I usually don’t spend a lot of time, if any, calling Dell’s horrible level 1 support, but I thought I’d try a few times over a few days (even after I had it fixed) to see if some were better than others. (A note about Dell support: their Silver/Gold technicians are fantastic, but the Average Joe with an E510 won’t have access to them.)
The fix in this case: Open up the computer and remove the TV Tuner add-in card. That will alleviate the resource sharing conflict and allow the system to boot normally. Download and install D5150A05.EXE from Dell (a BIOS update that came out earlier this month). Also download R114566.EXE, which will update/reinstall your chipset drivers. After implementing both of those updates, put the TV Tuner add-in card back into the system and power back up. The system should work normally.
All in all, this is pretty routine troubleshooting; I won’t often post about fixes for specific issues, but I’m curious to see how many people are searching on the net for this particular problem. If you do post here about your experience, please be sure to include the date you purchased your system; I’m curious if they’re still shipping new systems with this problem.
Update 5/15/06: Turned out that wasn’t the end of the road. About a week later, trouble resurfaced when one of the drives in the RAID experienced corruption. Dell shipped out a replacement HDD which I’ve installed but have yet to incorporate into the RAID as yet. Right now, the system is using just one of the two drives, seemingly without incident. I don’t have a lot of confidence that rebuilding and using a RAID mirror will work properly until I see a new driver posted on their website. In any event, the BIOS update probably didn’t do anything except remap resources long enough for the system to boot… only for the resource conflict to re-emerge shortly thereafter.
Update 6/5/06: After hours of wasted time on the phone with technical support, explaining the problem and the process over and over again, not to mention transfers into supervisor queues only to languish on hold and eventually be disconnected… this system has been accepted for a free return and exchange by Dell’s Escalation team. A couple hundred people have searched the net for this problem and found this site. I wonder how many are having this problem, and I wonder if the “identical replacement system” they send out will have updated drivers or different hardware.
Update 7/3/06: I’ve yet to find any official word from Dell commenting on their awareness of this problem, but reports of the problem are out there everywhere. This must be a massive support headache for them. I have a few clients with the problem who have received replacement machines and have yet to experience any trouble; soon, I’ll post whether they replaced the offending hardware component, or if there’s a driver or BIOS update on these new machines that’s solved the problem. There aren’t any updated drivers on the Dell support site, from what I can tell.
Update 7/15/06: As you can see from the comments, a Dell technician has dropped by the site while searching for a solution to this problem. They don’t have a solution in the Dell Knowledge Base, but at least we can confirm they’re aware of the issue now; hopefully, they can work something out with Intel quickly.
Update 7/30/06: Amazingly, months later, Dell still lists the old, broken drivers on their website. As many readers have reported, using an updated Intel driver seems to repair the problem. This isn’t a Dell supported driver, but then, their supported driver is broken.
Update 10/11/06: A great post today from Edd gives hope that people experiencing this problem might not have to repair the IASTOR driver to correct this problem. (This is especially good news for people who are already experiencing the problem and can’t boot the OS.) I haven’t tested it yet, but it’s the kind of thing that shouldn’t cause any harm. When you first boot the computer, when the Dell logo appears, hold down the F2 key to enter the BIOS. Go to the section for your hard drives, and change the SATA operation type to “COMBO” instead of “RAID”. These instructions aren’t exact because I don’t have a Dell BIOS in front of me to check it, but I’ll try to test and post step-by-step shortly.
Update 11/9/06: Someone from Dell support has kindly posted a Dell support document in the comments below. It looks like they’ve gotten around to addressing the problem. While this won’t help all of the people whose systems have shipped with the problem until they run into it, at least they’re aware of it now.
My Dell E510, which is almost two years from the purchase date, recently started the blinking light thing and now won’t come on at all! My warranty is out so I haven’t called Dell. Didn’t realize how big this problrm was until I started looking for answers to the fix online! SUE DELL!!!
Just adding my 2 cents here. I had this issue and here’s how I solved it.
1) Booted into Bios and changed SATA operations from AHCI to ATA.
2) This caused another BSOD of Unmountable Drive. I went into Windows XP Recovery Console and did a CHKDSK /R (about 2 hours).
3) Rebooted PC and was able to get into Windows. SInce the bios was still set to ATA, I rebooted my PC.
4) On this 2nd reboot, I went into the bios again and changed ATA to AHCI.
5) Windows booted up fine and I installed the updated Intel drivers as mentioned in the previous comments. (ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/SATA/R130119.EXE )
6) Rebooted windows and everything looks like its working fine.
I haven’t had any other issue since then. Thanks for everyone’s post and I hope that my comments help anyone else.
Okay, so i’m reading about this problem now and i fully understand it, my cx-2620 is now having this problem for a 2nd time. I thought the first one was a problem due to the hard drive but how i’m aware (it happened just after a slight drop), so i ignored it. Now I’m at a point with my labtop, is there anybody around who could help me out? I’m lost as to what to do since i have no CD for windows xp tablet.
I had the same problem on a Dell E310 where I could not get into safe mode. Windows staled on mup.sys and eventually I got the BSOD regarding the iastore.sys. Dell support had me unplug the power cord and hold down the on/off button for 20 seconds. Then they had me plug the power cord back in, turn on the system while continuously tapping the F12 key. Eventually it popped up a diagnostics menu. I ran the harddrive diagnostics and one of the hard drives failed with an error. The second drive, which is in a RAID 1 set, was okay – so at least all the data is still there.
Now the fun part – Dell indicated that the warranty had expired on this machine – it expired yesterday! (Can you believe it?) I could buy a new drive from them and it would cost me extra if I wanted them to help me walk thru the replacement process. Now, I can swap out a drive without any help, but what does it take to get the system up and running again? If I do it wrong, the system might copy the new blank drive over the second mirrored drive – all data lost.
Also, I asked if I had a mirrored drive why can’t I just boot up and run off the second drive. I was told you can’t and that the second drive is just a backup. If it is mirrored isn’t it suppose to be identical?
So, the questions I have for this forum are: 1) Can I just boot up and run of the good mirrored drive and how do I do this? 2) If I get a new drive what are the steps or procedures to get this to boot up and properly copy the data over?
It has happened to me on every single laptop I have added to our domain (Dell, HP, Toshiba, Lenovo, Fujitsu, etc, etc, etc). iaStor.sys causes a blue screen of death.
Solution: Turn off SATA in the BIOS.
I am disgusted at this issue, SATA may be a cheaper alternative to SCSI, but it simply isn’t worth the hassle…
Greate blog!
My brother have a Dell dimension 9050 Multimedia Center Desktop that had the same iastor.sys BSOD STOP error.He cameby and just dropped it off at my place and demanded I fix it. I dont know how I did it but it seems to work fine with no more BSOD.
The method follows like this:
A. OPEND UP THE CASE AND REMOVED THE MOBO BATTERY FOR 1 MIN AND PUT IT BACK AGAIN.
B.MOVED THE PASSWORD PIN IN THE MOBO (PWD DISABLED).
C.DISCONNECTED ALL SATA CABLES AND RECONNECTED THEM.
D.ON STARTUP GOT INTO BIOS AND CHANGED SATA OPERATION MODE TO /ATA AND ALSO DISABLED (OFF)ALL UNUSED SATA AND PATA DRIVERS.
E.RESTARTED PC AND WAS ABLE TO BOOT INTO SAFEMODE(I noticed the pc was sluggish with ATA operation, it took time but was working). IN SAFEMODE RESTORED THE PC TO LASTWEEKS RESTOREPOINT AND REBOOTED. DID ALSO CHDKS WITHOUT ANY PROBLEMS AND FOLLOWED BY A RESTART.
F. ON STARTUP WENT BACK INTO BIOS SETUP AND CHANGED BACK SATA OPERATION TO /AHCI, SAVED AND RESTARTED PC.
G.XP STARTS FINE AND RUNS SMOOTHLEY AND NO MORE BSOD.
CONCLUSION:
There might have been a Windows updated that messed about with iastor files or perhaps that Zonealarm currupted one of them misstaken it for threat. Becouse only them two had run during the week.
Peace and Goodluck.
My piece of CRAP 9150 is being thrown off my roof tonight.
I am sick of Dell and sick of the nightmare this has been.
Months of this BS enough is enough!
I have had the same problem with a bit of a different twist. My Dell XPS400/9150 was shipped with only one hard drive and I havent had any trouble over the last 2 yares until I recently installed a second hard drive. Within 24hrs my system shut down and now I am getting the evil blue screen of death. I cannot enter safe mode. as There are some files on there that I haven’t backed up yet. I know my bad. I honestly don’t know how to go about fixing this but any guidance would be much appreciated.
I bought an HP DV9543d with Vista Home Premium in July 2007. In June 2008 I started seeing the BSOD. From the Intel site, I downloaded and installed the FIX to no avail. (From reading this blog I am thinking — since I don’t do TV tuner stuff — that BSOD is a side effect of http://www.twinspires.com upgrading its video product.) I have not yet embarked upon any of the “fixes” mentioned in this blog (disable SATA in BIOS, Norton security, uninstall MS upgrades, etc.) as I am looking for a “simple fix” to implement.
I have an XPS 400. Had the BSOD several times found this site and downloaded the drivers and things seemed fine until I upgraded to Sevice Pack 3. Now I am getting the BSOD again! Anyone else running service pack 3? Do I need to reinstall the drivers again?
Well i think ive hade a bit here and there of all the problems ive been reading here,I have a dell demolition opps dimension e310 since i bought it in october 2006 its been nothing but a headache that i just lost intrest in fixing it since i didnt get no restore disk or anything i read here,just as i got used struggling the internet with this contrapsion and i saw light at the end of the tunnel i saw some programs come back magically to my add/remove programs when i mess with bios i get an update from microsoft service pack 3,I install it,restarted,and my DELL doesnt go past the dell logo,,,,WHAT A CRAPPY DELL MACHINE,,,,this is my first dell and my last,,,what a complete waste of time and money…another dissatified customer.
OH by the way will swapping out the hard drive work?Does anyone know?thanx in advance,,,I just took out the best backup guarenteed to work 100%satasfaction for DELL…..ITS CALLED COMPAQ………
Hi,
Started getting the BSOD with this error message in the past two weeks. Happens at least once a day now. So far on restart it boots up fine. Not a great sign though.
I plan to perform a back up and then try to apply the fixes mentioned above. I am not used to troubleshooting pc (been on a mac up to this job) so I’m really nervous about screwing things up worse.
purchased dell e310 back in april 2006, computer locked up with a blue screen and i can’t even rebot in safe mode,called dell and they claim for $40.00 they may be able to fix the problem for me, but i did get some helpful info from your site that i may try before wasting any more money with dell.
I just had this problem with a mirrored raid dell E310 that would not boot after updating the chipset drivers ….
I finally got it back up by overwriting the iastor.sys file in c:\windows\system32\drivers with version 6 I downloaded from the dell support site … I used Bart PE boot disk to do it from a flash drive ….Then I patched the bios to be sure
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/downloads/en/downloads_splash?c=us&l=en&s=gen&~mode=popup&file=173456
I have a DELL 9100 XP Media. I just started to get the iastor.sys BSOD. I have a boot drive (0) and a data drive (1). I couldn’t even get the PC to boot to safe mode so I unplugged the PC, removed the cover and disconnected the data drive. I was then able to boot into safe mode and schedule a chkdsk /F on the next reboot which worked and corrected some errors on the disk. I was then able to boot back into full windows mode. I powered down and reconnected my data drive, but when I attempted to reboot it hung during the boot. I disconnected the data drive and it booted fine. Does anyone have a suggestion on what to do ?
Excellent blog. I have encountered the dreaded iaStor.sys BSOD. Dell 9100 with 2 hard drives, one boot the other is a data drive. I ran a hard drive diagnostic and it indicated a failure on the boot drive. So initially I thought my boot drive had crashed. However after reading through this blog, I decided to disconnect the data drive and reboot. Windows booted and I installed the latest intel drivers. The only problem is that when I reconnect the data drive, the boot processing hangs on the initial DELL boot window. So what now?
I have the same problem with an HP laptop. I recently had my motherboard replaced because it was faulty and after I got it back I’ve had about 3 of these problems. Idk how to fix it yet, everything is updated. :/
Will post if figure out problem
I encountered the blue screen after I update my OS (XP Home) to SP3 in April (heard many having such problem after updating OS to SP3). After I restored it, an dusing for 3 months, now my Dell Dimension E520 cannot even start. I am receiving a solid amber light on the on/off button. After call Dell technical support, they concluded I have both power supply and mother board problem. Now am waiting for their quotation (believe it will cost a bomb). I’ve just bought it some where in Nov 2006. Just my luck…
THANK YOU
HAVE DELL DIMENSION 9100, COULD NOT INSTALL STORE BOUGHT COPY OF XP. FREAKING OUT….
SWITCHED SATA SETTING TO RAID AHCI/ATA…. INSTALLED RIGHT AWAY. HAD TO HAVE DELL FORMATTED SATA DRIVERS DISK ON FLOPPY.
THANKS !
I had a very similar problem with a Dimension 8400 owned by one of my clients. His hard drive died and after installing a new one, I could not get XP to install. Using a Dell XP Pro SP2 restore disk, setup would run, copy files and appear to complete successfully. When it came time to boot into the system for the first time, I got a BSOD 0x0000007b. When I tried to load iastor drivers from dell’s site using F6, I would get the same blue screen before I had the chance to partition the hard drive. After trying a bunch of different things, I have finally found a solution. It is a bit unconventional, but it worked. I was using XP Pro Setup discs, I would imagine XP Home would work as long as you used a pre-SP1 disc.
Step 1: Download R82876.exe from Dell’s Website http://ftp.us.dell.com/SATA/R82876.exe (or copy from Dimension Driver CD) and use it to write a floppy disc with the IASTOR drivers
Step 2: This is where it gets tricky. You will need to find a Dell XP Pro Pre-SP1 restore disc. The XP Pro SP2 Discs will crash when trying to use the drivers from step 1. Use F6 to load the specific IASTOR drivers from your floppy drive.
Step 3: Boot into Windows and Install XP Service Pack 1A (Reboot)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=47&p=4&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=0136e5f8-1684-4202-b2d0-c6a43430f12a&u=details.aspx%3ffamilyid%3d83E4E879-FA3A-48BF-ADE5-023443E29D78%26displaylang%3den.
Step 4: Download and install Intel Storage Manager Driver version 7 for ICH6R (Reboot)
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/T8Clearance.aspx?sType=&agr=N&ProductID=2101&DwnldID=15449&url=/15449/eng/iata70_enu.exe&PrdMap=&strOSs=44&OSFullName=Windows* XP Professional&lang=eng
Step 5: After rebooting, verify the new driver version 7 in device manager under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.
Step 6: You should now be able to safely install SP3.
I have found this issue on a dozen or so Dell boxes. Having worked in IT Depot repair for the last 3 years the fixes are many and usually pretty easy, if you have the tools to get past the the non bootable issues. For my last customer who owns a Dell E310, I had to use a ghost repair tool to fix the corruption that the crashing had caused before I could get in to the operating system to repair the bad drivers. Chkdsk would not fix the issue even though windows recovery console could see the drives. This site provided an extra fix. I was unable to locate the RAID driver for loading fix tools so that the program can see the drive. Thank you very much for posting that.
Cheers
well, i have just happened upon the infamous blue screen last nite AND this morning , when all i did was push in the button to remove a dvd-rw disc that i finished copying in my e drive…..blue screen pops up and gives me error message that my bios is incompatible with my cpu…or that i have a virus and need to scan…..etc…..
before the blue screen last nite i was getting a low disk space message…so i was able to make up over 3gigs of space….and it didnt seem to help much as i got the second blue screen….the error messages were minidumps……..if anyone has any ideas i would be grateful and willing to try….i appreciate these sites……thanks…
why am i not surprised at ALL! Dell has to be the worst company i ever had to deal with in my life i hate them with a passion and it sucks that they are so big. I rather go with HP from here on.
Anyway i have had this same exact problem for the past year, after numerous calls to dell support liek everyone else it was horrible to say the least. After finally getting a technician to figure it out he install those “updated drivers” they wroked for a while and now the BSOD is back again with a vengence. im going to call Dell support again for the 4th time about this same issue and im going to make those bastards send me a brand new updated system, im sick of being a sucker with these jerks im just so damn sick of it
I’m glad the Dell tech put a resolution on this site. I have an XPS400 that shipped to me in March 2005. I have not had any serious problems until I got this driver error last weekend. The error appeared from nowhere for no apparent reason. The Dell tech I talked to wanted me to use my Recovery Console to resolve this problem, but my DVD drive doesn’t work. I couldn’t seem to get him to understand I can’t do anything with the installation dvd if my drive doesn’t work. Anyway, I’m going to try this fix tonight and see if it works. One question I had is how do I know what drive to install from Intel for my particular machine?
Thanks
In response to Ian (4/13/08 2am) – Thank you! Your solution worked for me (At least; it appears to have worked) DELL XPS 400, problem happened out of the blue, with no new hardware or software installed. Cheers!
Success! I have a Gateway laptop that was experiencing the same problem – BSOD reporting “driver_irql_not_less_or_equal iastor.sys”, unable to access HDD drive or run CHKDSK, etc., etc. Decided to open up the laptop and see what HD was in there – a Hitachi Travelstar 80GB. Went to Hitachi’s site and downloaded their Drive Fitness Testing software to a 3.5″ floppy. Attached USB floppy to laptop and ran the DFT software Advanced Test. It said the HD had some corrupted sectors, used the DST option to overwrite bad sectors. Rebooted the laptop, it ran CHKDSK, verified HD was OK…and Windows XP was up and running. Rebooted a few times to make sure it came up consistently, no problem.
I received this same BSOD. I ran a memory test (Disabled Fast Boot) then it notified me that the RAM had read/write issues. Replaced the ram and it worked perfectly.
had this very error, when attempted Safe mode boot, it stalled at mup.sys as above. After visiting this site, I removed drive to connect it to another PC to inspect it. Sadly this drive was SATA and the rescue PC was IDE.
Found this adapter: Cables Unlimited USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE Adapter With Power Cable at Tiger Direct and was able to plug the bad drive into the USB on my rescue computer. On boot up the rescue computer automatically performed a chkdsk on the faulty drive, repaired some sectors and the index and Voia!!! the drive was bootable with all data apparently in tact. I am wondering if the issue was really the driver problem..
Thanks for providing some direction with this scary BSOD issue
Thanks to all for the posts here, they have been an enormous help… A friend of mine brought me her pc with this very issue and it had me completely stumped until I ran across this page…. Dell Dimension 9100 3.0ghz, 2gb ram with XP Home.. 945p mainboard and a single 500GB HD SATA….. Using an XP disc with SP2 integrated is what seemed to do the trick for me after setting the bios to COMBO and creating a floppy of Intel Matrix updated drivers(on another pc), placing the floppy in the drive of the 9100 and then hitting F6 when booting to the OS DISK and installing the drivers from the floppy when ask (pressing ‘S’)…. Deleted the C: partition and then formatted that space, installed without a hitch… With just a regular XP OS disc kept getting the BSOD with a pci.sys error, XP OS disk with SP2 Integrated solved that issue…. Many many thanks for the posts and info here, was a great help
I I too seem to be having this problem. In addition, my system is XPS 200. So it seems it is the problem with XPS system, I too purchased it in 2006. Tech support pointed me that my warranty has expired. Then I was told the by paying 49, 00 my problem could be fixed. After I was transferred, a woman came on line and she told, I need to pay 129.00 to fix it or better take 236 or something like that warranty choice for the whole year. However, I refused and I have opted for just 49.00 jobs where I was told my hard disk would be erased. My question is how by 129 you can do without erasing your data. Also, I found that Dell has separate hotline for XPS. That shows that there is some systemic problem with this system.
The tech support is supposed to call me up today to continue with help by 7.00 pm and it past that time. I hope I get the call.
Over and over through this blog it is like deja vu with the proble I have on my WIFE’s XPS 400 with all of her pictures on it not backed up for the last three years. It looked like Stingray and Ian’s post would be the best to try first. My problem is the c:\ drive formate is [unknown]. I can see the other drives as NTFS FAT and FAT32. So it looks like the C drive is not accessable to replace the iastor.sys file. I tried Ian’s proceedure but could not get the system to produce the BSOD Unmountable drive. When in the XP recovery mode I can access the oter drives even USB flash drives, I can even change drives to the C:\ but if I do a DIR it says the drive is unrecognizable. I have a copy of the Ultamate Boot Disk for Windows and can see the C:\ but there is nothing under it. and CHKDSK won’t run on the drive. Any thoughts around this one, My Wife is biteing her nails and tapping her foot. Thanks for the blog it gave me a few more things to check.
robi….your way worked perfect,,,thanks for the info
hey guys this was my fix make sure ram is in the two white slots that is bank 1 and bank 2 if no change then go to boot optionslocate hd performance and instead of using step speed on hard drive go to default. Ialso found my phone modem was shorted so i pulled it then the syt. has been working perfectly since so i reset step speed and all is still awsome good luck feel free to email me mike
I have a three year old Gateway that, last weekend, crashed with the blue screen of death AND iastor.sys. I cannot recover my system and don’t know what to do. I have e-mailed Gateway to ask for a solution, but I wanted you to know that it’s not just Dell.
I have over 44 Dell optipex 755 desktop computer. And this computer is using Dell original pre-install windows XP professional edition. But I have tried to open AHCI and install Iastor.sys (Intel Matrix Storage) drivers successfully. But I found 2 problems.
1. Mouse and keyboard hang during using PowerDirector 7
2. Blue screen during using Adobe Photoshop CS4, and the blue screen is showing the same problem “iastor.sys error”
how to solve this problem?
Wife’s Dell laptop, Inspiron 1520, running Vista. After a momentary power glitch, started booting up slowly (around 7 minutes), and then hanging after an hour or so. 6 or 7 Iastor() errors in the system log, about a minute apart, corresponding to the slow boot. Just ran a chkdsk (via graphical interface right-clicking the drive, ticking both repair boxes) – seemed most relevant of all the suggestions above. It ran on next startup, took a few hours. Everything ok now. Wife thinks I’m computer genius, thanks for the info.
when i go into bios, there’s no drive selections… where can i access this??? I have a dell inspiron 6400 and this blue screen of death is freakin’ annoying as hell!!!
Hi there, JoeSwiss again, I made a post on 11.17.07 / 4pm absolutely convinced I had The Answer.
Wrong.
True, my earlier Answer (oiling up the power supply fan) will have enough of an effect to positively impact the True Problem.
But the True Problem was this:
SO MUCH DUST HAD ACCUMULATED ON THE CPU FAN THAT THE CPU WAS OVERHEATING, causing the “freezing up” errors.
ALL I HAD TO DO WAS VACUUM OUT THE EXTERNAL (CASE) FINS from all the dust. Also, I opened the box, figured out how to access the cpu fan (unscrew the big black copper or aluminum cooling fins / heat sink ? — I don’t know the exact correct term), then vacuumed out the heat sink fins as well as the fan. Was pretty thorough. (I do this every few months). Surprising what big clots of dust come sliding out.
(Observation after unscrewing the heat sink: the top of the cpu had what looked like “peeling paint” — probably from contact with the bottom of the heat sink. Things must have been getting hot under there!)
Bottom line: VACUUM OUT THE DUST. Simple. Fast. Free.
This is the true, true answer. Joeswiss 5 Jan 09
PS — you will notice right away that the machine runs A LOT quieter.
I have an E510 that I’ve had since 2006. Had a few problems when it first arrived (mirrored HD needing replacement and some minor things). Today in 2008/2009 I’m getting this exact problem.
1) My antivirus finally expired so I installed AVG for free.
2) SP3 came along so I installed that.
3) Immediately had a problem with the Malware Antivirus2009… comletely annoying… fixed after a day
4) THEN the problems started… Active Desktop issues over and over which would lock up the system. I fixed that.
5) then Standby hangs, I disabled Standby in the Power Options.
6) and finally the BSOD with the iaStor.sys error… and here I am.
Before I hit this website I thought for certain it was an error in Service Pack 3, and it may be related, but now I see I was probably just lucky for a while.
Thanks for this Blog, and good luck to all.
Hi!
May be my experience will help you. I’ve got the same BSOD with the iaStor.sys error on my new Dell Studio 1537 and I discovered that the source of it was Ricoh’s Card Reader driver. Uninstalling it solved that problem (now I’m searching for another version of it)
I also have a E520 that my uncle gave me since he gave up fighting the hard drive issues and i have spent over 20 hrs trying to get the raid portion to work. Well after reading everyone’s posts i will not be using raid. I have configured it with Autoraid and i can install windowsXP just fine. I can also ghost the machine which i wasn’t able to do before. I also tried installing CentOS 5 but to no avail still wasn’t able to get it to function with raid 1. Very frustrating, can’t even use the technology on what it was designed for.
Hello,
I’ve had a Dell 8400 since late 2004 and until one month ago had no “iastor.sys” crash problems. Here is my situation:
- System crashes only when I try to make a full image of the HD using Acronis TrueImage 11 (Why would only disk imaging cause the crash?). I can reproduce the iastor.sys crash at will – as soon as the imaging starts I get the BSOD. Been doing weekly images for a few years with identical set up and no problems. Last time I was able to image the drive was on December 22. Whatever changed happened shortly after this date.
- I tried using XP System Restore to go back to December 21 settings but the problem persisted.
- I tried Dell’s fix but after changing the SATA Operation setting from RAID Autodetect / AHCI to RAID Autodetect / ATA in System Setup, I get a BSOD as soon as I save changes and the system begins to restart.
- I’m using the original A03 BIOS and considered updating to A09 but, based on a prior BIOS flash disaster, I’m very leery of doing so. Also, since I had no issues with the A03 BIOS until a few weeks ago, I doubt it could be the problem.
Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Read the entire blog so far and tried various ways.
So far this has worked for me (on a Gateway MX6926b)
No joy with chkdsk or repair as windows not see c:/
The recovery application is on a hidden partition on the laptop, none of the choices would work and give me the iastor.sys BSOD.
Decided to laucnch Partion manager and see what I could see.
Recovery (hidden) partition was intact but C: was all over the place.
I formatted the drive as pre-set and rebooted and restarted the recovery program, this time was allowed destructive recovery, worked a treat till 48% then BSOD.
Will post back when I find solution.
Many thanks to the author of this page for taking the time to concisely describe the problems experienced. It’s a million times more useful than a carefully-worded company response!
The problems I experienced on a customer’s machine weren’t quite the same though, but I thought relating my experience might be helpful to other people.
Summarising the symptoms I saw:
* Random BSODs, many being about IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL or KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR (One stick of memory was faulty – tested multiple times using memtest86 3.4 using different slots, tested each stick in turn, etc)
* During the computer start-up, the machine might take ages at the AHCI screen, or the “Loading PBR for descriptor 2″ screen, HD light staying on, then an error suggesting the hard disk was up the creek would appear (“read error”, or “not found”, etc). I tested the disk in another machine, turned out 100% fine, no bad sectors, no failures of any sort, mounted perfectly normally. The machine might boot Windows successfully then take ages to do something you tell it to, then iastor and IDE timeout errors would be posted to the event log. I found the problem in this case to be the SATA power cable, the removable case panel was pushing it, causing a loose connection.
I’m using a company Lenovo T400 which suffered from this problem (BSOD in iastor.sys, usually when PC is idle or battery powered). A couple of days ago Lenovo published an updated Intel Matrix Driver which seems to have fixed my problems. I’m leaving a link here (for T400) in case someone else still suffers from this:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-70477
Version 8.6.3.1004
* [Important] Dropped support for ThinkPad X301.
* (New) Support for ThinkPad W700ds.
* (Fix) Blue screen error comes up during idle.
I’ve my Dimension 9200 (raid 1 mirror) running for almast 4 yeras without a single problem!
After 2 years, in 2008, i update my system with 4gb Ram and a Q6600: all works fine (Win XP Sp3 with all the updates).
Nonetheless, a the end of 2008 something stranger begin…iaStor time-out errors, during DEFRAG!!!
I can copy over 200Gb at a time over the raid system and nothing happens, BUT if I DEFRAG in windows events (on system manager) I can read “event id 9, time-out bla bla bla, device\ide\iastor0 yadda yadda”.
I’m working on it since first days of 2009, formatted and reinstalled the system 3 or 4 times (who counts?!).
Tried all the way reported in this site, tried all drivers, tried all solution (5 or 6) at Dell site support.
The first resort is buy a PCI controller (can be useful?) the second resort will be BUY a new CASE and a new MOBO.
The strange thing is that the time-ou error “event id: 9″ happens only as I defrag my system AND there are many files to defrag (the defrag completes every time) BUT if there is only a few file to defragment (3 to 4 minutes) all woeks well.
I think also that some win updates can be the cause.
Thank You for this page
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iaStor Nightmares
I am having a problem on a Gateway System with a iastor.sys file. The system will not let me boot to safe mode of any other option on that menue. The Gateway CD only gives me the option to overwrite the current OS and loose all files, or overwrite and save information to c:/windows bla bla bla file. Is their any other way to save this system and not loose all of the files?
I spent over two years dealing with Dell on various computer crashes on boyfriends Dell XPX 600. I was having a differant problem on boyfriends Dell XPS 600 than described above. He purchased his XPS in March 2006. His computer would blue screen for various reasons but would always show event 51 errors for the hard drive and cd rom event 7 and 51 errors. Dell even replaced the hard drive and cd rom drive. This did not fix the problem. Besides blue screening at the drop of a hat, this thing would constantly freeze up. This went on until Dell supplied a link to a new Nvidea driver. Dell stated that it was a reported issue that the Nvidea driver conflicted with the controller chip on the motherboard. I had to wait for an Nvidea updated driver to be issued by the manufacturer and supplied. I was emailed the link for the new driver in 7/2008. I have not had any further issues with the Event 51 errors for the hard drive. His computer has a Nvidia GE Force 6800 graphic card. I don’t see anyone reporting this issue but thought I would place this here in case anyone has experienced hard drive and cd rom drive error issues. This seemed to resolve his issue for the hard drive. Now in January 09 after installing an external hard drive I am getting cdrom Event 7 and 51 errors again and the computer freezes up whenever the external hard drive is turned on. Looks like another controller issue? It just doesn’t seem to end with Dell. I have seen that he also has iastor.sys files in his computer but have not found where they are being used. I have looked in Device Manager at the locations mentioned on this site and don’t see them being used. I am about to get on the Dell merry-go-round again. I have told Dell that I am going to paint a big yellow lemon on it and place a picture of it on the internet. Anyone out there experiencing this with their Dell computer?