Dell Inspiron problems - blue screen of death

[Oscar11]

got the 1 year warranty... its been about 2 years

Suddenly, I heard this slight ticking sound coming from inside the laptop, and within a minute I got the blue screen. Now, everytime I start it up, windows starts to load up, i start to see my desktop icons, and then it goes straight to the blue screen.

When I boot it up in safe mode and try to do a system restore, I get an error. "System restore has encountered problems and must close... report/dont send"

I'm not sure what I should do... should I contact Dell? Will they still fix it if my warranty is up? and if so, any idea what the price would be?

Or should I try something else on my own? Or just take it elsewhere for repair?

As you can see, I'm in need some advice lol.. any info at all would be appreciated.

thanks

[mlc2000]

Google the BSOD error.

[Siefer999]

sounds like its most likely a microsoft problem and not a dell problem

[sahilz]

A ticking noise may point to issues with failure in harddisk, or fan, or some other hardware component.

[Oscar11]

A ticking noise may point to issues with failure in harddisk, or fan, or some other hardware component.

thats what I was thinking..

I've looked into the problem, and most people say the first step is to run chkdsk. Well I've done it twice now.. it runs for about 3-4 minutes and says:

1% done
Correcting error in index $130 for file 2646
Correcting error in index $130 for file 2646
Correcting error in index $130 for file 2646
Correcting error in index $130 for file 2646
2% done
Correcting error in index $130 for file 10236
Correcting error in index $130 for file 10236
3% done
4% done


Then crashes to the blue screen - with the same error message as before. Does this mean its definitely a hard drive issue?

BTW, the stop code is:

*** STOP: 0x000000F4 (0x00000003, 0x8A3B9020, 0x8A3B9194, x805D13B6)

Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete.

[badboy7]

which operating system are you using..? Windows Vista.. or Windows XP SP2...?

[Oscar11]

sorry, thought I mentioned it. XP sp2

[7jaii]

A ticking noise may point to issues with failure in harddisk, or fan, or some other hardware component.

It's very important that you stop running diagnostics after seeing your CHKDSK scan. It could be several causes but if it's HDD then you risk losing all your data when it stops spinning up. It's clear that this isn't a minor issue or else your OS could finalize internal repairs. BSOD is serious when caused by component failure.

We need to know your laptop model number & date of purchase to narrow down laptop component specs.

--> don't power up your laptop until you know the cause of this error.