'Bad Pool Caller' error after CD/DVD drive switch

Question

Hi all, I just installed a new vid card on my computer, and had to basically reinstall my cd/dvd drives since they somehow dissapeared from device manager in the process of my install. Anyway, i got them up and working again(had to re-install primary IDE driver), and then switched them around in my case while i was in there, since the factory configure has the cd as master drive, dvd as slave. After i switched the drives(and changed the jumpers in the back), they were detected and installed just fine. However, i found that the dvd drive was only working seemingly in cd mode(the burn speeds were all out of whack). I couldnt figure out why, so i switched them back to the way that they were originally, hoping that would simply resolve it. Now, when i restart, i get the 'blue screen of doom', and the error it gives me is 'BAD POOL CALLER'. It goes through a memory dump, then it restarts and goes through the whole thing again and once again does the blue screen. I have reset bios, disabled both drives in bios and restarted, and even took the internal battery out and put it back in, to no advail. It will not boot in safe mode, either, it almost gets to desktop, then lapses back to the blue screen, error message, and susequent memory dump. I have googled the error message last night, but none of the potential causes match up with my particular problem. This prob hit me late last night, so i didnt have time to do a whole lot, and I am now at work, the only thing i can think of other than a possible windows reinstall or format(which i REALLY dont want to do either) is to switch the cd/dvd drives once again and see if the conflict is resolved....The computer is dell dimension 8400, btw. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated..... Thanks!

fireberd · Answer

However, your PC, like all newer PC's was shipped with the CD/DVD drives set as Cable Select, not master or slave. If you've changed them, that may be part of your problems.

Make sure the BIOS is detecting the drives, as Windows will not detect them if the BIOS does not.

The fact you "lost" the drives after installing the Video card suggests there are still problems with the video card installation and/or software and that may be the root of the current problems. Installing a video card should not cause other system problems.

rmp73 · Answer

Thanks Fireberd, I've tried pulling out and reinserting pretty much all of the hardware, both of the jumpers are set on cable select. All of the connections are secure. Bios is detecting the drives and everything else as well. Though when I reboot, an instant after the 'welcome' screen, I still get the same blue scren, with seemingly a different numerical error every time, too. It then does a mem dump, subsequent restart, and sequences again. I can boot from cd, am running chkdsk right now hoping that may help. Any ideas on what could be causing this? I'm just about at a point where I will do a full reinstall or even a format/reinstall, but i dont want to go through losing everything just to have the final reboot give me that blue screen again.....I've read plenty of stuff here about people doing reinstalls or formats and the blue screen of doom still appears....

the_natural · Answer

you can try running a diagnostics on the Memory Modules. btw, what was the STOP Code of the BSOD? you can use the Knowledge Base of Microsoft for these BSODs. the last thing that you did was installing the Video Card, so you can start troubleshooting that Video Card. it might have been a corrupted Driver or the Software of the Video Card. try Last Known Good. if that would fail, then see if you can go inside Safe Mode. if you can, then uninstall the driver/software of your newly installed video card and try to boot again. if all else fails, then do a Repair Reinstall first before going into a full format.

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'Bad Pool Caller' error after CD/DVD drive switch

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