Weird blue screen out of nowhere + machine unable to boot

devnull · 10-10-2021 4:34pm #1

So, I've had a machine working well for the best part of a year and never a single crash, rock solid stability.

I was browsing the web and went to a web-page and the browser became unresponsive as did the start menu and task bar but alt+tab worked and I was able to access some apps but not all of them, having a game in the background, I went to save it knowing there was signs of system becoming unstable.

The game just hung when saving, I quickly alt tab back to another app and that was working okay. Alt tab back to game and still save progress wasn't moving. At this point the whole machine froze up. After a couple of minutes I got the following blue screen.

SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION.

It never generated a log and the report stated 0% complete for 15 minutes before I had to manually restart the machine as it was clear it wasn't actually doing anything and whilst it could show the blue screen it had got stuck there.

Upon reboot, I was greeted with another blue screen with error code 0xc000000f and saying it couldn't load Windows\system32\winload.efi.and to press enter to try again, when the same thing just happened. So I pressed R1 to enter recovery environment.

I was then greeted with another blue screen, saying a required device isn't connected or can't be accessed, error code 0xc000000e.

I jiggled around in the BIOS making sure everything looked right and didn't change anything and got

Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key.

I decided to then use my Gigabyte BIOS method to manually select the boot device on start-up and picked the primary SSD which gave same error, I did the same and selected the same device but WINDOWS BOOT MANAGER after it's name and it booted absolutely fine.

Question I ask here is do you think this is a sign of a failing SSD or something that tried to hijack my MBR? I've done a full virus scan and checked the SSD health with Samsung Magician, and everything looks fine.

I'd love to look into the BSOD logs or the event viewer logs, but they are completely empty. Also the machine now boots fine reguarly, without needing to select the option in the boot menu. Makes me weary about my main SSD though.

fritzelly · 10-10-2021 4:55pm

Sounds like an issue with the MBR, have you tried repairing it

devnull · 10-10-2021 5:25pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118001368#Comment_118001368

Didn't need to, after I did a manual boot through the BIOS by selecting the boot device and Windows Boot manager, even cold boots now work, so actually didn't have to repair anything in the end.

Selecting the relevant device from the BIOS for a single boot seemed to fix it which is odd. I've just updated the firmware of both the drive and the BIOS just to rule any glitch out there.

Feels like a SSD that glitched out for a short period and then just came back. It's worrying, but time will tell if it was a one off glitch or not I guess. Also if it was just the MBR it doesn't really explain the BSOD when windows was already running and the whole machine went unresponsive, curiously the apps that didn't freeze initially were all hosted on the other SSD, which again suggests some temporary incapcitation of the primary SSD?

fritzelly · 10-10-2021 5:44pm

Probably - if it happens again probably a good time for a new drive

devnull · 10-10-2021 5:54pm

Will have to RMA it if it happens again, it's a Samsung 980 Pro NVME running alongside two older SATA Evo 960s.

Will see how it fares with the new firmware, but certainly will be backing up more often now.

Weird blue screen out of nowhere + machine unable to boot

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