I'm having a tough time with my dual boot setup. I installed Windows alongside Linux for gaming, but I'm facing frequent crashes where Windows gives me a BSOD with the error 'Critical Process Died.' It used to occur a few times a week, but now it's worse—I'm unable to use Windows at all. Linux on my HDD is still working perfectly fine.
I'm running Windows on a WD Black m.2 drive and Ubuntu on a regular HDD. I've tried a bunch of troubleshooting steps including booting in Safe Mode, installing a clean version of Windows, swapping RAM, turning off overclocks and undervolts, resetting BIOS settings, and even using different m.2 slots. I've checked with DISM, SFC, and CHKDSK, formatted the drive, updated the BIOS, and run diagnostics on the storage and memory. I've checked the Event Viewer, and I keep seeing critical errors related to stornvme and volmgr. Initially, Arch Linux ran smoothly on the m.2 drive. I could really use some insight into this issue!
2 Answers
Firstly, have you checked for any dump files from the BSODs? Those files can really help pinpoint the problem. If you can get into Windows, look in C:WindowsMinidump for any recent crash logs. Zipping those and uploading them to a file sharing site could be super helpful. If you can't find them, you might want to follow a guide to set up smaller memory dumps. Also, make sure you have a reliable way to access those files because they could really shed some light on what's going wrong.
Since you mentioned that Windows is installed on a WD Black m.2 drive, you might want to check if a firmware update is required. Sometimes these drives need updates to fix issues that could cause them to crash. If you're getting BSODs right from booting, that could indicate a deeper issue—like possibly moving the drive to another PC just to see if it’s an issue with the drive itself or your setup. If that’s not possible, you may have to consider reinstalling Windows on the drive again.
Thanks! I'm currently having some trouble finding my Ubuntu drive in BIOS after resetting some settings, but I know the Ubuntu installation works.
I can't boot into Windows at all right now. Is there a way to access those dumps without logging in?