"Windows Protection Error" message? - What tha?

[caesar]

Hello!
I'm just goofing around with a "FREEBY" from a school. It's a older HP Vectra.
200mhz, 64mb ram, 2.5 gig Quantum HDD. current OS was 98 1st. Edition.
Lots of junk on the computer, time to start clean.

Three times I've wrote zeros to the HDD, reformatted & installed Win98SE.
I get about 5 minutes from a complete install & during one of the many auto reboots, I get this message "Windows Protection Error- Restart Your Computer".

Help!
Thanks!

[monster]

Originally Posted by caesar Hello! I'm just goofing around with a "FREEBY" from a school. It's a older HP Vectra. 200mhz, 64mb ram, 2.5 gig Quantum HDD. current OS was 98 1st. Edition. Lots of junk on the computer, time to start clean. Three times I've wrote zeros to the HDD, reformatted & installed Win98SE. I get about 5 minutes from a complete install & during one of the many auto reboots, I get this message "Windows Protection Error- Restart Your Computer". Help! Thanks!

http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;q149962

[GaryRouth]

The link monster provided from the MSKB is the most comprehensive answer.

A few quick fix tries might be:
1) If you were installing with the Bios AntiVirus enabled, try again with it Disabled [then re-enable once completely finished with the reinstall]
2) Try using the default settings in the Bios.
3) Use diagnostics to test the memory and hard drive, just to make sure you don't spend time fighting a hardware problem. Bootdisk.com has links (look in the "Harddrives" and "Memory" sections on the page) for diagnostic downloads http://www.bootdisk.com/utility.htm

. . . Gary

[Jomama]

It might be a RAM problem or if it uses an AMD CPU, clean and reapply HS paste.
Reseat the RAM and CPU.
Reapply paste to CPU
GL