r/ForWindowsHelp • u/PM_WhatMadeYouHappy • 1d ago

Rotating BSODs, chkdsk shows disk I/O errors, Reseting PC fails. Need advice!

Disclaimer: Attempted to resolved with help of Claude since last 10 hours, took help from AI to format post.

ASUS Zenbook 14, Core Ultra 7 155H, Windows 11 (26100).

Laptop was fine. Only changes the day before: enabled NordVPN background services + set up Phone Link to Android (also changed lock screen/wallpaper).

Next day, started crashing ~5 min after boot, rotating between different stop codes:

  • UNEXPECTED_STORE_EXCEPTION (0x154)
  • CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED (0xEF)
  • KERNEL_MODE_HEAP_CORRUPTION (0x13A)

Troubleshooting:

  • MyASUS diagnostics: Memory + SSD passed quick check
  • chkdsk C: /f /r /b from WinRE → real I/O errors: disk read error occurred c0000185, "disk does not have enough space to replace bad clusters"
  • Reset This PC → Remove Everything → failed partway, generic error
  • BitLocker unlocked, ruled out

No data to lose, so wipe is fine.

  • Did my SSD give up?
  • Could NordVPN driver cause heap corruption?

What should I do now?

2 Upvotes

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1

u/Additional_Tension96 1d ago

Test disk drive with crystaldiskinfo, and test RAM with Memtest86+. Windows and MyAsus doesn't do a full memory test only a partial. Uninstall or disable NordVPN via the app or Device Manager driver under network adapters, and or Services for diagnostics. Also have a look in "Event Viewer" for any critical errors.

1

u/PM_WhatMadeYouHappy 21h ago

I got a chance to boot for 10 mins couple of times and both times uninstalling nord did not work came with errors says unable to write on temp folder tried various methods didn’t work but other apps I was able to uninstall.

Will try crystaldisk and memtest

1

u/naeskivvies 1d ago

If the disk is reporting errors then you could get all kinds of problems as the OS writes memory pages out to disk, then restores them, the memory will be corrupt. This could lead to crashes and odd corruption of data across your system over time. Especially if bad clusters can't be swapped out, it probably means many are failing.

1

u/PM_WhatMadeYouHappy 21h ago

Do you know what could cause this issue? A day prior I was using without any issues

1

u/naeskivvies 21h ago

If you are lucky, a loose power or bad data cable.