Removing Daemon Tools & Alcohol through Safe Mode

[Hartdegen]

Operating System: Windows XP
Burning Software: Daemon Tools 3.33, Alcohol 120%, Nero
Anti-virus Software: Norton Antivirus 2004
DAEMON Tools Version: 3.33

Hello, yesterday my PC froze so I restarted, only to be greeted to BSOD upon boot-up. The last time I had this kind of issue, I had my minidump analyzed by the fine folks here and resolved the conflict. This time, I wasn't sure if it had anything to do with D-Tools but I didn't know where else to turn, so I sent in my minidump to VeNoM386.

He tells me that I should try to uninstall Alcohol and D-Tools first since they are very old versions. However, I am only able to run my PC in Safe Mode now, and when I try to uninstall these programs, Windows tells me that it can't because the installer isn't loaded, or something along those lines.

I haven't received a response by Venom yet so I thought I would try here. Also, is there anyone else that could also try analyzing my minidump and seeing what is causing the BSOD? I have a hard time believing that it has anything to do with D-Tools since I've had 3.33 for a long time with no problems.

[Andareed]

Boot into safe mode and remove dtools/alc driver files from C:\windows\system32\drivers. They should be called pnp* and/or st3*. Then reboot and uninstall.

[Hartdegen]

I do not see any files named pnp or st3 under my systems32 folder. The closest files appear to be stclient.dll, stdole2 and stdole32. Are these it?

[Copytrooper]

No! Do NOT delete the mentioned files!
But you searched in the wrong folder! NOT windows\system32! But windows\system32\drivers!

[Hartdegen]

Ok, stupid mistake on my part. Now, I see 3 st3 files: st3bus28, st3mp28, and st3wolf. No pnp files to be found though. I just want to make sure if these safe to delete?

[Andareed]

st3wolf is part of older dtools. st3bus28 and st3mp28 are probably from 2.8. You can try renaming these files (to ex: st3bus28.bak)
and reboot.

[Hartdegen]

I just tried renaming the files and rebooted, but I still get the same BSOD.

Here is what the screen tells me:

STOP: 0x000000F4 (0x00000003, 0x86BDFBD0, 0x06BDFD44, 0x805FA19A)

I doubt this tells anything though...

[DevX]

Daemon files (according to minidump you sent me) are
stwlfbus.sys and st3wolf.sys.
Alcohol files are axsaki.sys and axskbus.sys
You also have Pcouffin.sys from Blindwrite - rename it for test too.

[Hartdegen]

I just removed those files from my System32/Drivers folder, and rebooted. But now, I can't even get into safe mode. It starts to load the drivers to initiate safe mode, and at the end, it just seems to hang, and nothing happens. Can anything be done to get back into safe mode now?

[DevX]

Are you sure you removed only THESE files?
Afterall, if you removed Daemon and Alcohol drivers from system then there is something else that prevents your system from loading.
Now you need to boot from receovery console or try last known good configuration.

[Hartdegen]

I can enter safe mode again for some reason. I tried running scandisk on boot-up just in case it was a memory error, but the scan found nothing. But now, as a result, scandisk always starts when I try to boot-up normally. I think interrupting the scan may have contributed to the fact that I couldn't get into safe mode, since I finally decided to let the scan complete for a second time, and it finally let me enter safe mode again.

Anyways, I removed those files and I still get the same BSOD on boot-up. What else could it possibly be?

[DevX]

You minidump refers to crash in csrss - system component. Maybe something is corrupt is system. Check what software you have installed recently. Afterall, as you said, your system was working normally long time even with old Daemon drivers. So it is definitely some other soft issue.