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Troubleshooting a Windows blue screen in a Fusion virtual machine (1024460)

Symptoms

A Windows virtual machine suddenly stops responding.
A Windows virtual machine presents a blue screen (commonly called a "Blue Screen of Death", or "BSOD") when it tries to boot.
A Windows virtual machine will not boot.

Resolution

Each step below provides instructions and a link to a document, for performing the step and taking corrective action as necessary. The steps are ordered in the most appropriate sequence to isolate the issue and to identify the proper resolution. They are also ordered in the most appropriate sequence to minimize data loss. After completing each step, try starting the virtual machine again. Work through each troubleshooting step in order, and do not skip a step.

To troubleshoot a Windows virtual machine displaying a blue screen:

Restart the virtual machine.
Restart your Mac.
Repair your virtual disk and any snapshot disks. For more information, see Repairing a virtual disk in Fusion (1023888).
If this is a Boot Camp virtual machine, try deleting the metadata files. For more information, see A Boot Camp virtual machine fails to power on with a disk error (1003483).
If you see a STOP 7B error when booting and the virtual machine is based on a Boot Camp partition, was created with the help of Migration Assistant or vCenter Converter, or was upgraded to Windows 7, try removing the SCSI controller. For more information, see Troubleshooting Stop errors when using Boot Camp virtual machines (1003485).

Note: If this step does not solve the issue, be sure to reverse the change you made.
If the virtual machine was converted or migrated from a physical machine or a different virtualization platform (such as Parallels or Virtual PC), change the SCSI controller. For more information, see Changing the type of SCSI controller used in a Fusion virtual machine (1020879).

Note: If this step does not solve the issue, be sure to reverse the change you made.
Try to boot into Safe Mode. For more information, see Booting a Windows guest operating system into Safe Mode (1004011).

Note: Depending how your keyboard is configured, you may need to press fn+F8 rather than just F8.

If Windows boots into Safe Mode but does not boot normally:
1. Run a disk check.
  - For Windows XP, see Microsoft's knowledge base article How to perform disk error checking in Windows XP.
  - For Windows Vista, see Microsoft's article Check your hard disk for errors.
  - For Windows 7, see Microsoft's article Check a drive for errors.
2. For Windows XP, after running a disk check, run a System File Check. In the same command prompt window, enter:
  
  sfc /scannow
  
  Note: You may be prompted for your Windows installation CD.
Repair Windows using your Windows installation CD:
- For Windows XP, see Performing a Windows repair on a Windows XP virtual machine in Fusion (1013846).
- For Windows Vista, see Microsoft's article Startup Repair: frequently asked questions.
- For Windows 7, see Microsoft's article Startup Repair: frequently asked questions.
- For Windows 8, see Microsoft's article Repair & recovery.
Confirm that there are no file system issues on your Mac's hard drive. For more information, see Performing a disk repair in Mac OS (1020943).
Confirm that your Mac's RAM is working correctly. For more information, see Checking physical memory (RAM) on a Mac for VMware Fusion (1021740).
Contact Microsoft for assistance resolving the blue screen error.

Note: The preceding links were available as of September 14, 2010 . If you find the links to be broken, provide feedback on the article and a VMware employee will update the article as necessary.

If the issue continues to exist after trying the steps in this article:

Collect the VMware Support information. For more information, see Collecting diagnostic information for VMware Fusion (1003894).
File a support request with VMware Support and quote this Knowledge Base article ID (1024460) in the problem description. For more information, see How to Submit a Support Request.

Additional Information

For assistance reinstalling Windows (XP, Vista, or 7), see this Microsoft page: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/help/install-reinstall-uninstall.

Note: The preceding links were available as of September 30, 2010 . If you find the links to be broken, provide feedback on the article and a VMware employee will update the article as necessary.

Update History

09/30/2010 - Added link to Microsoft site on reinstalling Windows (XP, Vista, and 7). 03/01/2011 - Updated symptoms. 09/20/2011 - Corrected spelling

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