Blue screen of death, as known as BSOD, is a system error. Based on the official explanation from Windows, the system will halt when some operations that would damage the safety occur, which is called a bug check, also as a system crash, a kernel error, and a stop error.
When this error appears, if the operating system continues to run after its wholeness is damaged, the corruption of data and the collapse of system security might occur. Then, the crash will boot, the system will break off to check the crash, if not, there will show a blue screen with the error information.
On the whole, the blue screen error occurs without a certain reason, however, it often happens after the Windows upgrade, on the startup, and during the use, so we roughly divide the reasons into 2 categories.
Hardware reasons:
Hardware devises installation
Hardware fault
The incompatibility of newly installed hardware devices
Software reasons:
There’s no enough space for Windows to install
Incompatible Windows updates or programs
System files corrupted
Outdated BIOS
…
There will have a blue screen on your PC with a text: Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart. We’re just collecting some error info, and then we’ll restart for you.
And under the screen, you may see an error code.
Here, we list common blue screen error codes
CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED
SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
VIDEO_TDR_TIMEOUT_DETECTED
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION
C1900101-20017
0XC1900101-0X40017
Now, after we know what the blue screen error in Windows 10 is, the next question is what can we do about recovery blue screen Windows 10. As we mentioned before, this error can occur after you upgrade Windows, while booting Windows, and during use, so we list various solutions based on these 3 situations.
Way 1. Run System Restore
Step 1. Follow the operations to reboot Windows 10 into Safe Mode:
Press the power button for 10 seconds to turn off Windows 10.
Re-press the power button to start the PC and hold the power button for 10 seconds to turn off it.
Press the power button again to turn on the computer, once Windows starts, hold the Power button again for 10 seconds to turn it off.
Retry to power on your computer until Windows fully restarts and enters WinRE (Windows Recovery Environment).
Click "Troubleshoot">"Advanced options">"Startup Settings">"Restart”
Now your PC is in Safe Mode.
Step 2. Press "Windows + R" keys at the same time, and type rstrui.exe in the box, press “Enter” to open System Restore.
Step 3. Click "Choose a different restore point">"Next".
Step 4. Choose the latest Windows backup before you install the new Windows 10 update, and click "scan for affected programs".
Step 5. Click "Finish"
Step 6. In the warning window, click "Yes" and wait for the process.
Way 2. Extend system drive and install Win 10 update
If the system drive doesn’t have enough space for the update, the blue screen error will occur. So, the simple strategy for this situation is to extend the system drive and make clean install Windows update. Because there are many limits to extend drive space via Disk Management and CMD, so here we recommend you a convenient drive resizer, Qiling Disk Master Professional. With this powerful software, you don’t need to worry about if there’s unallocated space on the hard drive or not, because this application can allocate free space for you.
Selection 1. Extend system drive with unallocated space
Step 1. Install and launch Partition Assistant, you can see the whole situation of the hard drive. If there’s unallocated space, right-click C drive, choose “Resize/Move Partition” in the menu.
Step 2. In the next window, drag the border rightwards to extend the partition.
Step 3. Then you click the "Proceed" to commit the operation.
Selection 2. Extend system drive without unallocated space
Step 1. Right-click the partition from which you want to allocate free space and select "Move/resize".
Step 2. In the pop-up window, type in the size of the free space which you want to cut from the D partition, and this free space will be directly added to the destination partition.
Step 3. Click "Apply" to execute this operation. You can see how much time it will cost you to finish this operation in the pop-out window.
After your system drive gets enough free space, you can do a clean installation of Windows 10.
Step 1.Download and install Windows 10 installation media to a USB larger than 8 GB.
Step 2. Please connect the Windows installation media USB to your PC and follow the steps to restart the PC from USB.
Press F2/F8/Del to enter BIOS
Choose the Boot Section
Set USB as the Boot Drive
Step 3. Choose “Install now” after the PC startup from USB.
Step 4. Set Language settings and other options
Step 5. Skip entering the product key, and select "Install Windows only". Choose the target device to install Windows 10.
Step 6. Follow the order to finish the installation.
Step 7. Enter the BIOS Boot menu again and set the Windows 10 OS drive as the boot drive, restart the computer.
Way 3. For Blue Screen error code: C1900101-20017
This error usually shows during the process of installing updates. You can set BIOS to solve the error.
Step 1. Follow the path--C:/Windows/Software Distribution/Download and delete all files and folders under the Download folder.
Step 2. Go back to the root directory of C: drive and delete $Windows.~BT folder.
Step 3. Restart PC and enter BIOS, please enable "Load Optimized Defaults" to disable all overclocking options.
Step 4. Enable UEFI boot in the Boot menu.
Step 5. Disable the Secure Boot.
Step 6. Press the F10 key to save your settings and exit from BIOS
Way 4. For Blue Screen error code: 0XC1900101-0X40017
When this error code occurs on the screen, it means some incompatible hardware default is essential for the boot environment that deeply links with the update. We can fix it with Troubleshoot.
Step 1. Set back to Windows 7/8.1, and disable all antivirus software.
Step 2. Leave only mouse and keyboard connecting to the PC, remove other devices.
Step 3. When the update download shows 100%, disconnect the Internet, after that, continue the installation.
Way 1. Upload the latest Windows 10 update
Step 1. Boot your PC in Safe Mode, then press “Win”+ “R” together, type “Control Panel” in the search bar to open it.
Step 2. Click “Programs”, “Default Programs”, “Programs and Features”.
Step 3. In the left menu, click “View installed updates”.
Step 4. Right-click the latest Windows update, and click “Uninstall”.
Step 5. In the warning window, click “Yes” to confirm.
Step 6. Then, click “Restart Now”.
After resetting your computer, please exit Safe Mode to save the changes and execute the operation.
Step 1. Press Windows + R keys, type msconfig, and press Enter.
Step 2. Follow: "Boot tab" > "Boot options" > Uncheck "Safe boot" box.
Step 3. Click "OK" and "Apply".
Then, restart your PC.
Way 2. Uninstall the device in Windows 10
Step 1. Press “Win”+ “R” at the same time, then type “device manager”, choose “Device Manager”.
Step 2. Expand “Disk drivers”, right-click the OS hard drive, choose “Uninstall” in the small menu.
Then, you need to follow the same guide at the end of way 1 to exit Safe Mode to run the changes and restart your computer.
Way 3. Uninstall program
Sometimes, the blue screen error arises after you installed a program. So, you can try to install this program to see if the error is fixed.
Step 1. Click “Start” to open the menu, and click “Settings”.
Step 3. In the Windows Setting, choose “Apps".
Step 4. Find the app in the list and click it, then click “Uninstall” and follow the orders to finish.
Way 4. Fix blue screen restart loop
This method requires you to start the computer from a Windows 10 installation or a Win 10 bootable external drive.
Step 1. In the Windows 10 installation window, click “Next”>“Repair your computer”>“Troubleshoot”>“Advanced options”> “Startup Settings”>“Restart”
Step 2. Press the corresponding key to boot in Safe Mode. The different computers may have a different key to summon Safe Mode, but normally is F4/F5, 4/5.
Step 3. Then, you can uninstall the programs or broken hard drives.
This situation often occurs because of incompatible software, newly added hardware devices, viruses…so the methods are the same as the above ways:
Booting from Safe Mode.
Uninstall programs and then run a virus scan.
Unplug the new hardware devices.
There are various reasons to cause this error, what we can do is to try more ways of recovery the blue screen in Windows 10. You can follow this fix guide to solve the problem. Hope your PC will get rid of this issue soon!