Start Up Error Issue

[leethepee]

Hi, a friend of mines has a Vaio AR series laptop. He is having an issue with it however just now when trying to boot up the pc. He keeps getting the attached error message. Does this mean his HD is corrupted in some way?

[Thalamus.]

Hi leethepee,

has your friend followed the steps described on the BS.?

[leethepee]

Hi leethepee,

has your friend followed the steps described on the BS.?

Apologies, what does BS mean? I tried to hit F10 to initial a full re-install but that never worked and I thought that was a bit several option before posting the issue here.

He can't get into the comp to do anything, all he gets is the XP pro window then this blue screen.

[Thalamus.]

Apologies, what does BS mean?

Sorry BS = Blue Screen..

Is your friend able to boot into safe mode.?

Restart your Vaio and when you see the Vaio logo press the F8 key repeatedly..

What was your friend doing before the stop error appeared.?

Edit..

Microsoft state..

A "Stop: 0x00000024" error message occurs when Windows Vista encounters an unrecoverable error when it tries to access an NTFS partition or a volume on the hard disk. Typically, you receive a "Stop: 0x00000024" error message during Windows Vista Setup when one or more of the following conditions are true:
•The file system or partition structure is corrupted.
•A driver compatibility issue exists. For example, the file system driver for an antivirus program or for other utility can cause this issue.

You may find the possible solution to the "Stop: 0x00000024" error message using the following link: Troubleshooting Stop error messages that may occur when you try to install Windows Vista

[leethepee]

When he showed me the laptop, I tried to boot in safe mode but ended up getting the blue screen again. I'll have a little read of the link you have sent me, thanks for looking into this. 🐵

[Thalamus.]

Good luck..

[leethepee]

after looking it does appear to be quite a bad prob. I have seen there is a way to boot from a floppy drive but neither of us have one. Do you think it could be booted from a USB pen instead. If I can boot from disc I can force the PC to do a chkdsc operation and possibly sort the issue. Its either that, or the HD is completely goosed. With an HD issue such as this, I guess there is no way to reformat the HD and just re-install XP Pro?