Hi This might just help someone in a similar dilemma. As mentioned before, the notebook all of a sudden just had the screen go black and froze as I was using it for some normally iPhone/Android smartphone game Word Life installed within the Android emulator Bluestacks. I am naming this, because I suspect it has something to do with the problem. I later read Bluestacks emulator has been known to cause some problems on Windows PCs, but at least not as serious as in my case. I was forced to shut down the notebook but could not get it to power on again after that, in spite of many trials. The whole drama & chronology is explained in the original post. After days & dozens of trials to get the notebook to at least allow a fresh installation of Windows all failing because of diverse screens stopping the process, just as Windows files were starting to load, among the countless solutions for solving blue screens, with a wide range of Stopcodes errors, one of them mentioned as part of the process turning off the notebook, disconnecting the mains, removing the battery and then pressing the power switch and holding it down for about 30 seconds. I had planned as Microsoft Answers Community Forum helper suggested to test the 2 8GB individual memory cards or in fact try to use a 4GB memory card from another notebook to see if it'd work. To my pleasant surprise, before the memory card test, I powered on the notebook to see if the above step made a difference after connecting it directly to the mains, without the battery and without any of the blue screens drama booted directly to the Windows 10 installation DVD, without any interruption. With this, I suspected all was back to normal and stopped the process. I need to mention before all this today, booting was equally impossible even with 2 other drives + similar blue screen errors, meaning the issue was NOT related to storage media, but probably to BIOS/UEFI or motherboard(?). I was using a separate SSD drive as the original HDD I had before as mentioned above, in the process of trying a fresh installation of Windows and hitting the GPT roadblock, I had had to delete the primary partition, which I now regret. With Windows booting normally on this SSD where I have a separate, complete, functioning Windows 10 installation, all was OK and it seems the process of removing the battery, pressing and holding down the switch for about 30 seconds, before then powering on the notebook led to the deletion(?) on the motherboard (??) of whatever was causing the countless blue screens with diverse Stopcodes + at times a blank screen. Could Bluestacks have corrupted some drivers(?) on the motherboard and led to the deletion of Windows registry & co, which made it impossible to use Windows recovery tools like automatic recovery, restoration points, Start repair + the Command Prompt option, before multiple blue screens kicked in later? May be someone more conversant could explain what exactly happened and how this worked after many days, when initially I could get into Windows but could not use any of the restoration tools and then LATER, every attempt to boot, even with Windows installation media was interrupted after seconds by blue screens, making it impossible to implement any solution that requires going beyond this. Thanks & best regards
Hi My notebook: an old Dell Inspiron 17R 5737, Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit 16GB RAM, an old Intel iCore 7 processor (not compatible with Win 11) with all available Windows and Dell software updates installed. All hardware was working well according to Dell Software Assistant tool up to recently, in spite of its age and high use mileage. The other day, with no other programs started, I was playing Word Life, actually a game you find on iPhones & Android smartphones, which I had used many times, when it suddenly ground to a halt. The PC suddenly froze & the screen turned dark with some patches of different colors before I decided to force a shut down. My suspicion, though I might be wrong is it has something to so with this game, which requires installing Bluestack Android emulator(?), which I had installed about a month back and had to date caused no problem. There was no sign of resource overuse or high temperatures, etc. the few times I have used it. When I tried to power it on after that, it consistently failed to turn on at all, at times seeming to start but then failing to boot. After many trials, I gave up for a few hours, thinking it was completely dead. After a while, I tried to turn it on again and it accepted BUT I started getting blue screens, with diverse messages including: Interrupt Exception Not Handled SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA . I then decided to use Windows repair tools.  Automatic repair would appear to start but after a while some bluescreen came up. After many attempts, I gave up as that was futile. I then went to the tools under Troubleshooting under Advanced Options, all of which failed, including Start up repair, restoration point, making me suspect the (registry?) data had either been corrupted or deleted. The created restoration points could not have just disappeared! My hope then rested in the Command Prompt option, but as I followed all instructions [Youtube Video: "Fix Windows 10 Blue Screen of Death Error [Tutorial]"], towards the end, I noticed, in spite of several trials that the files in my directory C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack (including Security, Default, Software, ... ) were NOT all there as shown in that Youtube video around 10:47 + some online tutorial. The next step told me the directory I was trying to go to did not exist. I may be wrong, but my thought was some data was missing. So I had to give up on this option as I could not complete the process. After that, I decided to try a fresh installation as the last resort. I was told with installation media, I could not upgrade or retain the data & settings and had to reboot, but as explained above that was NOT possible. So I chose => install, but another hurdle came up. Since I had data on the 4 partitions, I decided to sacrifice "C" and deleted/formatted it but got an error that Windows could not be installed on it as all the partitions were not GPT. I learnt, if I turned to UEFI in BIOS, this would work. So I did, but then had blue screens, with varying Stopcodes coming back whenever Windows just started loading from a USB drive I had prepared with the Media Tool. I tried this many times, at times getting a BLANK blue screen, which was not the case in earlier trials mentioned above. In my frustration also tried switching back to Legacy in BIOS, but now seem to be confronted with diverse blue screens and cannot get beyond that initial screen when Windows on the boot media starts loading. Important: The Dell ePSA Pre-boot System Assessment tool shows ALL DEVICES, including Processor, System Management & Memory have no errors. I am very frustrated at this point. What can I do? Please remember as explained above, automatic recovery and all related tools DO NOT WORK + I can currently not even get an installation CD or USB media created from the Media Tool to completely load before some blue screen stops it. Since as mentioned above, I have deleted the original installation partition C, anything involving its data is no longer possible.  I just need to be able to use the notebook again. How do I get Windows to successfully boot and get installed and work without these blue screens which were never there before all this started the other day? Not sure this is part of the solution, but if data in BIOS or on the Motherboard was corrupted, probably by something related to Bluestacks or something else, how do I get it back working? Before posting this: with Legacy Boot + Windows 10 installation DVD: as the installation media loads, after a few seconds, the screen suddenly turns blue, with no error message. I assume nothing is going to happen after about a minute and turn it off. with UEFI BOOT, with Legacy OPROM, Secure boot off, booting from USM media, after a few moments with Windows installation screen. IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, it then restarts on its own and immediately a blue screen with message including only the word "KERNEL" I managed to catch UEFI Boot, Secure Boot off: starts with Dell screen, + rotating wheel, before IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL stops everything. As said, in the course of the last 2, 3 days of trials, I have got diverse Stopcodes, of which these are a sample. As these last trials show, as of now, I cannot go beyond this point, which was initially in the above steps possible, after the countless trials. Please when responding, do not mention anything involving solutions that assume you can boot to Windows, because I cannot. Your help would be highly appreciated. PS: I am not an expert, just a simple user and so simple language + steps/explanations would greatly help.  Kind regards
Inspiron 17R 5737: Diverse blue screens after trying to boot to Windows