http://www.carrona.org
MVP Logo John Carrona
Windows Expert - Consumer
Most Popular Pages:
BSOD Index                         Driver Reference

Hard Drive Diagnostics        Memory Diagnostics
 Quick Links to the different sections:
Family                BSOD                Registry                Diagnostics 

Boot                   Memory             Windows              Misc

Last updated:  30 Jan 2011
                         Added link for BSOD info
Disable auto-restart & Enable mini-dumps
Please also ensure that your pagefile is on the same drive as Windows, and is at least 400 mB larger than your installed RAM.  Any questions, post to the forums about it.

Windows 2000:

Go to Start, then Run, then type in "sysdm.cpl" (without the quotes) and press Enter
Click on the Advanced tab
Click on the Startup and Recovery button
Ensure that "Automatically restart" is unchecked
Under the Write Debugging Information header select "Small memory dump (64 kB)" in the dropdown box
Ensure that the Small Dump Directory is listed as "%systemroot%\Minidump" (without the quotes)
Click OK twice to exit the dialogs, then reboot for the changes to take effect.
Here is a link to a description of what we'll need in the way of info from the Blue Screen:  http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic74712.html#entry409491

XP:
Go to Start, then Run, then type in "sysdm.cpl" (without the quotes) and press Enter
Click on the Advanced tab
Click on the Startup and Recovery Settings button
Ensure that "Automatically restart" is unchecked
Under the Write Debugging Information header select "Small memory dump (64 kB)" in the dropdown box
Ensure that the Small Dump Directory is listed as "%systemroot%\Minidump" (without the quotes)
Click OK twice to exit the dialogs, then reboot for the changes to take effect.
Here is a link to a description of what we'll need in the way of info from the Blue Screen:  http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic74712.html#entry409491

Vista:
Go to Start and type in "sysdm.cpl" (without the quotes) and press Enter
Click on the Advanced tab
Click on the Startup and Recovery Settings button
Ensure that "Automatically restart" is unchecked
Under the Write Debugging Information header select "Small memory dump (64 kB)" in the dropdown box
Ensure that the Small Dump Directory is listed as "%systemroot%\Minidump" (without the quotes)
Click OK twice to exit the dialogs, then reboot for the changes to take effect.
Here is a link to a description of what we'll need in the way of info from the Blue Screen:  http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic74712.html#entry409491

Windows 7:
Go to Start and type in "sysdm.cpl" (without the quotes) and press Enter
Click on the Advanced tab
Click on the Startup and Recovery Settings button
Ensure that "Automatically restart" is unchecked
Under the Write Debugging Information header select "Small memory dump (64 kB)" in the dropdown box
Ensure that the Small Dump Directory is listed as "%systemroot%\Minidump" (without the quotes)
Click OK twice to exit the dialogs, then reboot for the changes to take effect.
Here is a link to a description of what we'll need in the way of info from the Blue Screen:  http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic74712.html#entry409491

Registry location:  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl