CyberDude4819

Alright well to begin I honestly don't know where to post this ... problem as it isn't limited to Vista, but since that is where it seems to originate I decided to put it here.

First off I am not a noob when it comes to computers, no I don't know everything either, but I know my fair share. So today I am at work and I am on my laptop playing Hitman Contracts. The game was on pause while I was on a call and what not and then the system suddenly just shut down via the windows shut down process, not just turned off, but an actual legit shut down. Now I am absent minded so I honestly wasn't sure if I just pressed the power button or what so I powered it back on and it just started cycling through my POST and loading Vista. Once I disabled the auto reboot I got the most generic and unhelpful BSOD error. I don't remember exactly what it said but it was basically

error 0x0000032a {FATAL ERROR}
then more error number jibberish that turned up squat on a google search
The System Was Shutdown

or something to that effect, but that was it. No STOP code or anything, and like I say searching the error numbers it gave me, and no that number up there probably isn't right, gave me a bunch of nothing and most didn't match up to what I searched.

So, having a second partition with Ubuntu on it I decided to throw in my LiveBoot CD so I could rewrite the GRUB Loader since installing Vista rewrote the MBR. Odd thing happened then too, the dist would load and Ubuntu would load just fine with the status bar going up and filling....then the status bar started emptying the way it does when it shuts down and ejected my disc and told me to remove it and press enter and then shut down once I did. Tried it 3 times same result, and Vista still BSODing. Next I loaded my GParted CD, yes I carry all of this with me, that did actually load fine and saw both partitions and the SWAP. So I tried Ubuntu LiveCD again ( Gutsy release ) and same thing. Next I put in my XP Pro CD and load the recovery console and right as I put in the Administrator password I hear the laser on my CD-Drive track in like they do when they eject/power down legally and poof - off goes the computer yet again. All in all I ended up deleting all 3 partitions one by one trying the CD in between each eventually having a blank hard drive with just unallocated space and still doing the same thing.

By this time I am frustrated, so I pull out the hard drive and boot the disc - it boots and loads just fine. So I shut down and put the hard drive back in and boot it up again. Just fine again. I then install Vista again. Goes just fine, other than it getting stuck on the CD a couple of times - my drive does that on occasion - so as I am installing all of the updates approx...30-45 min after install the system shuts down again, once again a legal shut down process shut down and yet again BSOD's when I power it on, this time a different set of error numbers, different error and it does a memory dump. So yet again I put in the LiveCD and go figure it boots up then back down again. So I take out the hard drive again, boot the CD, doesn't work the first time but following my theory I will explain later I wasn't surprised, but when I powered it back on again still not HD it booted fine, so I shut down and then installed Ubuntu right over the Vista install - not formatting this time with GParted - and it went fine and I was running on it for a few hours before coming home now. Still running fine too, I am going to format and install Vista again now that I am home to see if it happens again.

My above mentioned theory is that I am being virused inside of Vista via a security hole, as I am sure there are many, which is then latching its self somewhere in my hard drive and/or RAM/CMOS/BIOS/??? so when it powers down it isn't erased and the replicates to one or both locations and gives a kill/shutdown command to whatever is running since it happened in 3 different OS's since the XP Pro CD is technically a version of windows just loaded in the RAM with a DOS-like GUI. Why it didn't shutdown GParted I don't know, only thing I figure is that its because it isn't a full OS, or different coding protocols or something. Which is why when I boot twice without a hard drive it then works fine because it doesn't have anywhere with R/W access to plant its self to re-latch its self to where it is hiding for next boot.

I think it might be someone at work or something as I work in tech support and we have some rather intelligent, and immature, people there who get bored and ... mess... with things, and I find two times in one day within...2 hours we will say of each other is BEYOND coincidence especially since I am running Vista at home as well and it is fine. I am going to test that like I say by installing Vista again here at home and seeing if it has its stroke again or if it is fine and doesn't act up again ever, or at least till I goto work again at which point I am going to the network dept and asking if they have any kind of logs we can look at.

Any thoughts of yours on this book would be greatly appreciated.