Windows 8 BSOD on startup - Help please

[SacredVolt]

I was prompted to install windows 8.1, and I downloaded and installed it. After that, it told me to restart my computer, and after that upon startup the bsod appears for less than a second and my computer dies. The error is "driver violation" with no code.

I realise I'm supposed to attatch something here but I can't even get to the login page so...

 

[kemical]

Try booting into safe mode and then grabbing the minidump files. Also check out the thread found here:
Link Removed

This video explains how to get into safe mode:

 

[SacredVolt]

Okay so I did that and it said "restoring previous version of windows and my computer is working fine again. Thanks.

 

[kemical]

Hey no problem, glad to hear your all good. If you still would like to upgrade to win 8.1 check your drivers or system model for compatibility.
Link Removed

 

[Maciej]

Another thing is that not all equipment manufacturers support upgrade to Windows 8.1.
For instance, Lenovo laptops with Windows 8 will not upgrade to 8.1 – even though Windows Store offers you an upgrade.
At least the two Lenovo laptops I have tried.

 

[Saltgrass]

Some folks with Lenovos are upgrading. You can tell because they are complaining about the Repair system not working correctly.

It may very well be that system would encounter some problems after an update, so it might be best not to do so. But they have just increased the size of the new Recovery partition the Update adds, which might help the situation. Those 1 TB Lenovo Recovery partitions were causing heck...

One device I always suspect during updates/upgrades is a Bluetooth device. If you have one of those, try disabling it in the bios. There are probably logs on your system that might explain the error. Maybe a srttrail.txt or setuperr.log or setupact.log somewhere on the system. You could probably find a site that tells where those might be for a failed upgrade and rollback.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824819.aspx

 

[Maciej]

Thanks for the tip! Perhaps I should retry upgrading. My problem was that after the upgrades, which took hours, both Lenovos said that the upgrade was unsuccessful. Thanks for the link, Saltgrass – the log files might tell me why my updates were unsuccessful.

 

[kemical]

Another thing is that not all equipment manufacturers support upgrade to Windows 8.1.
For instance, Lenovo laptops with Windows 8 will not upgrade to 8.1 – even though Windows Store offers you an upgrade.
At least the two Lenovo laptops I have tried.

Hence my post about compatibility....................

 

[Maciej]

Hence my post about compatibility....................

Right. I hadn't noticed it had an option to scan the computer for compatibility issues. Thanks, buddy!

 

[Saltgrass]

I have been looking at new computers and have noticed there seem to be quite a few system that still come with Windows 8 and not 8.1. Whether this is because of some additional expense the OEM might incur or some other reason, like device compatibility, not sure.

My daughter has chosen not to upgrade her ASUS all-in-one to 8.1 and I notice they are one of the OEMs that are not offering 8.1 for some of their systems.

I also notice many systems are available with Windows 7 ......

 

[SacredVolt]

I've got a new problem now. My computer keeps trying to upgrade to windows 8.1, each time it fails and it has to restore the previous version of windows. How do I get my computer to not upgrade to windows 8.1?

 

[kemical]

You probably have Windows updates set to to auto? If you open the the control panel find windows updates and change the settings to 'check for updates but ask me whether to download and install them'. This is arguably the best setting anyway as your testament verifies. Not all updates are wanted and I always have my WU set to this setting as it gives you more control on whats happening with your pc.

If you don't want to see the same update appearing every time you open the WU just right click the update and click 'Hide'.

 

[SacredVolt]

Ahh that seems to work. Thanks, again.