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Windows Protection Error.

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14 replies

by lazerwolf

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One of my workstations just started giving us the message: Windows protection error. You need to reboot your computer.

Can anyone tell me where to start looking to resolve this problem?

Thanks

14 replies

by syscokid

We'll need more information, specifically the very FIRST part of the message, like "While initializing NDIS:" or "I/O:" because it could be more than one cause.

Thanks.

by lazerwolf

Sorry, but it didn't have any other part to it. That was the entire message. Thanks anyway.

by dft3

Lazerwolf,

I hate to tell you this, but my experience has been that the quickest way to fix protection errors is to format and reinstall the OS. It generally involves a corrupt registry due to countless reasons and isn't worth the time to try and figure out.

If you take this route, you have to be sure and format and not just install Windows on top of itself, because that it still won't work that way.

by calves

Since you couldn't give more info on OS, programs loaded, when does it happen, etc...
All I can think of is Regclean. A free tool for checking and cleaning your registry.
Run it 2 or 3 times back-to-back until it finds no errors, reboot and see.
Good luck!

by lazerwolf

It turned out not to be the registry, thanks for your help (i'm going to check out the regclean utility soon).

by mphoffar

Generally, when I've seen this happen, it's when either the level 1 (CPU) or level 2 (board) cache went south on you. Disabling one of the other in the bios should steer you in the right direction if those are it.

Good luck to you

Mark

by grbeckmeyer

This should be fairly simple to resolve. Search the Microsoft knowledgebase for article Q136337, this gives you a table with 4 different boot options. Following these instructions will pinpoint the problem. In my recent experiences with this it has usually been a corrupt NIC driver that just needs to be reinstalled.

by lazerwolf

Thanks you very much. That article was very helpful (something I should have been able to figure out for myself, but you know how it get's in the heat of the moment). It turned out to be a corrupt NIC driver. I reinstalled and it worked.

by scooterg558

If I recall this error correctly, it comes up in the dos screen right before the 95 or 98 desktop comes up. In the past what I've done is boot into safe mode, and then check Device mangler, see if there is some problem with a device in there and what it is. Remove the problem device, then reboot the machine.

by lazerwolf

I had gone that far. It didn't show any problems. Turned out to be a corrupt driver, so your solution was correct, but I had to find the bad driver through other means. Thanks for your suggestion.

by mmccaskill69

Boot into safe mode.

Open device manager and disable the devices that do not startup in safe mode (NIC, modem,etc...).

Restart the system to see if you are able to boot into normal mode.

If you can then you should be able to find out which device is the source of the problem.

Probably a resource conflict or a driver is corrupt.

If it boots up to normal mode you could go to device manager, open system devices and open PCI bus properties.

Under IRQ steering uncheck 'Use IRQ steering', reenable the disabled devices, and restart the system. If it boots up normally then the problem is a resource conflict.

by lazerwolf

This is the route I took, although the MS KnowledgeBase article mentioned in a previous answer had a good step-by-step procedure that did the trick. Thanks for your help.

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