Fatal Attraction........Er! Exception error

[gas path]

Twice quite recently I've suffered the 'blue screen of death' on boot up, doing a soft restart goes to the normal screen recommending 'safe mode' which I ignore and select 'normal', after the scan disc is done everything is back o.k. with no more problems.
What do you think folks? Time for a new hard disc before it's too late?
BTW the error message is 017f:bff72170

[DreamCatcher]

Happens to everyone at some time or other, and it can be anything.

Next time, try selecting normal with a boot log. That way you can read the text log afterwards (usually directly under C) and it may point to an errant driver.

Common causes though are poorly seated RAM, graphics drivers, or just in need of a good defrag.

Hope that helps a bit.

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If you're not on the edge, then you're taking up too much space.

[Flyswift]

Agree with Dreamcatcher.....

You don't get 'blue screens of death' on a iminant HD failure. They only relate to a corrupt/unloadable driver.

It won't hurt as mentioned to run 'defrag' occasionaly

[FireDragon]

Also

Select the step-by-step booting option. If there is a faulty driver, etc.. it should show itself.

If this is so, edit autoexec.bat, or config.sys, (depending on where the driver is), and put a REM statement (remark), before the offending article.

If all is then ok, you will need to re-install the driver/file at fault

FD

[gas path]

Many thanks for the info folks!
When I get some spare time I'll give it a go.
All seems pretty stable at the mo'