Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)

What is the Blue Screen of Death?

A Blue Screen of Death (also known as a Blue Screen, BSoD, or Death Screen) is an error screen.

It is displayed on a Microsoft Windows computer system after it detects a fatal system error, loss of stability, or when it is filled with malware. It is also known as a system crash. That happens when the operating system reaches a condition where it can no longer operate safely. A related problem to this on console machines though not necessarily on a screen is the Red Ring of Death (RRoD) on Xbox or Blue Light of Death (BLoD) on Playstation. Many versions of Windows have had these screens since the release of the operating system. Its Mac counterpart is the Mac Kernel Panic, and the Linux counterpart is the Linux Kernel Panic. Mac and Linux use the Kernel Panic as they are Unix-based.

On Windows Vista, 7, and 8 (but not Windows 8.1 or 10, or XP and lower) if you end the task "csrss.exe" in the Task Manager (accessible by searching it up on your Start Menu, by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc by selecting "Task Manager" in Ctrl+Alt+Del menu, or by going to All Apps > Windows System > Task Manager) you will get a Blue Screen, however it does not do as much damage to you than what's displayed on a regular Blue Screen. Cancelling "csrss.exe" in Task Manager with Windows 8.1 or 10 will hang the system only. Deleting System32 will not give you a Blue Screen, but will rather delete Windows, but deleting a few files such as user32.dll, csrss.exe, or winlogon.exe will cause a Blue Screen, even during startup.

Many different factors may cause a Blue Screen of Death to appear - anything from virus destroying a critical file that is required to run Windows, to your system being unstable and crashing. There are also some viruses which use fake Blue Screens as their payload, including: BSOD, Smash, Prizm, and Gollum. Even something as unassuming as a Windows Update or as drastic as hardware failure may cause this kind of error to occur.

Common Blue Screen Error Codes

0x00000001 – this code means that there is some mismatch in the APC state index

0x00000002 – this code is uncommon and shows a device queue not busy message on the screen

0x00000003 – it shows the invalid affinity set

0x00000004 – it can also represent invalid data access trap with an error message

0x00000005 & 0x00000006 – these both come separately where the former show invalid process attach attempt and the latter show invalid process detach attempt on the error screen

0x00000007 – this error code shows invalid software interrupt message along with the error

0x0000000A – it means that the Microsoft Windows or driver accessed paged memory at the dispatch level or above.

0x0000000C – this BSOD shows that the current thread exceeded the permitted number of wait objects. It also comes up with the same error written

0x0000000F – it depicts that a request for spinlock has been initiated when the spinlock was already owned.

0x00000018 – it says that the reference count of an object is illegal for the current state of the object. It comes with the message reference by the pointer with the error.

0x0000003B – it means an exception happened while carrying out a routine that transitions from non-privileged code to privileged code, it can also show system service exception on the same blue screen.

0x0000003E – it shows that the system has multiple processors but they are asymmetric in relation to one another. It represents an error message that says Multiprocessor configuration not supported.

0x0000005D – this is also related to the system processor and means that computer is attempting to run Windows on an unsupported processor. It also comes with the same message.

0x0000006D – this error states that the initialization of the Microsoft Windows operating system failed. It shows the Session1 initialization failed on the blue screen

0x0000011B – this BSOD means that a driver has returned from a cancel routine that holds the global cancel lock. This results in all later cancellation call to fail and come with the error driver returned holding cancel lock on the screen.

Resolving a Blue Screen of Death

Should you end up with a Blue Screen of Death, it is advised to attempt to enter Safe Mode. Click here to learn how to access safe mode on a Windows Operating system upon Boot.

Upon rebooting from a Blue Screen of Death, Windows will tell you that the device has not shut down properly, and then will normally give you the options to recover your computer or start Windows normally. However, this may not always work, and there is a small and very unlikely chance that you could get a Blue Screen of Death again during the recovery phase. Your device will then go through the recovery stage again afterwards. 

If you are able to successfully boot into Safe Mode or recover in Windows, investigate using process of elimination to find out the root cause. Try to remember what exactly happened just before the Blue Screen of Death appeared. Was some piece of software installed or updated? Uninstall it and reboot into normal mode to see if that was the issue. Did the device ensure a physical shock, such as a fall or spill?  Don't reboot it, but make a backup of your data first and then shut the device down for its components to be inspected for damage. 

If the Blue Screen error can not be corrected by either recovery or Safe Mode, then it's time to prepare for the worst case scenario: 

If you have a backup of your operating system on a recovery media, try to connect it to your device and then to boot from that in the BIOS menu. 

If you are not concerned about recovering your data from the device, a last ditch effort is to try reinstalling the Operating System and see if that corrects the problem.

Otherwise, the best thing to do is go to a professional. A technician that specializes in Data Recovery might be able to save whatever data is on your hard drive, but he or she also might not. Either way, they definitely will not do it for free.