Memory could not be written error?

I bought a used Asus G73JH and am now trying to restore it to factory defaults. I downloaded from the Asus site, a utility that writes a set of four discs which will boot and then restore the laptop to factory specs, i.e. reinstall the o/s etc. I made the discs and began restoring. Near the end of the fourth and last disc it showed an error. The pop-up read "The instruction at 0x014626da referenced memory at 0x0546fooo. The memory could not be written." It gave me no options, a second window opened and said the program was going to end and had an OK button, I thought it's not OK and hit the red "X" in the upper right corner and it closed anyway. Does any one know exactly what this error means. I can only guess it may have something to do with the RAM, this machine has 8 Gb of RAM. This computer came stock with Windows 7 Home Premium, but the error will have nothing to do with Windows, the discs did not complete the setup phase of the restoration and therefore windows has never been given the opportunity to produce an error. I have removed the hard drive and connected it to my desktop to see what was written before the error, nothing, When I click on the drive I'm told I need to format the disc before it can be used. The disk Management window reports it as having three partitions the first is 19.53GB, the second is 116.44GB RAW and the third is 329.79GB. The first two are primary partitions and the third is free space, it seems none of these have been formatted. Not sure if this is necessary information to help solve the problem, but just in case. Any assistance in resolving this error would be immensely appreciated, as I have spent the best part of three days trying a multitude of solutions and work-arounds, all to no avail.

 

A couple things to check (and maybe you did already):

redownload the discs - could be a corrupted download
reburn the discs - could be a bad burn - CD/DVD-RW's come in real handy here
rerun the installer - could have been a fluke error
swap ram sticks - at the very least switch them back and fourth (stick one where stick 2 was, stick two where stick one was) - try this only as a last resort, if it does end up fixing the error, you know you have bad ram

Other misc: SSD hard drive? Is it old? Could be bad "sectors" on the drive - rare, but possible (reading your description that would be a very expensive 500GB+ SSD. Could be an issue with the platter drive as well.

Last resort, try finding some memory diagnostics and test the RAM, try with just one stick at a time, try installing windows and running checkdisk, etc etc. I am unfamiliar with Asus laptops so I don't know if there is a built in test like with some Dells where you can run hardware tests pre-boot (I hate dell, but I have to give them that one, their pre-boot test is pretty useful for fixing their frequent-flyer machines at our service desk)

That reminds me, I remember with win7 we used to have to manually set AHCI hard drive mode in bios or we would get blue screens all day long. Something to try I suppose?

 

Thank you, Sublime 865.

The laptop itself made the discs and before I started the restore I rooted around and found the ISO’s in a temp folder so I copied them for safe keeping.

I did have to burn the first one several times before I got one to boot, then I had to rewrite a couple of the others, the G73 didn’t detect them and spit them out. I now have six or eight new frisbies. Got smart after a while and used DVD-RW’s.

I thought of the fluke error possibility and did try it a second time, got the same error at about the same point in the process.

The hard drive is an “old” platter style HDD, but I bought it new about one year ago, was using it for backup storage until I bought the Asus, never had a problem and so I don’t think it caused the error. I still had the original hard drive intact; this computer was a Christmas gift for my son’s girlfriend, lucky her. But I reserved the right to get it back when I find possible solutions to the restore problem.

I have downloaded memtest86+ and as soon as I am able I will check the RAM.

I don’t think there is any pre-boot testing software on this machine, I will check into it.

This brings me to the curious frequent flyer remark, could it mean the best thing to do with them is to toss them and forget about them; I too, am not a Dell fan. Never had one of their laptops but some of their PC were a nightmare to work on, mostly accessing the internal parts.

I vaguely remember something about AHCI settings from previous experiences, something I will have to look into, to see if it applies.

Thank you for the suggestions, will post with the results as soon as I can.

 

If you happen to attempt to burn new restore discs, do so with a different burner, if possible. Based off the other optical drive giving you problems with writing to the other discs, I can't help but lean on the possibility that the problem is the image - either a bad download or a bad burn.

Let us know what MemTest turns up. And to rule out the hard drive, try using any number of utilities to check the S.M.A.R.T status and/or check for weak/corrupted sectors.

 

Thank you all for the suggestions.

I have tested the RAM with Memtest86+, the test came back no errors. I let it do a second pass, just to be sure, and again no errors. So the RAM is not the problem.

On Prostar Computer's advice I tested the hard drive using SeaTools_Dos v2.23 and determined it was in good working order.

I also re-burned the 4th disc. After having to re-write most of the others I don't know why I didn't think to try the same to the fourth disc.

This time the restoration process claimed a success.

(It seems the referenced memory at 0x0546fooo was referring to a location on the DVD and for what ever reason this information could not be transferred to the hard drive.)

Now the problem is that it will not boot to the recovery partition, which is formatted in the FAT32 file system, to re-install Windows 7, drivers et all. Even resetting the boot priority in the BIOS to boot from the hard drive first didn't help. I have pulled the drive again, connected it to my desktop and it now contains the following files:


Folders - ASUSLog
- boot
- DisableS3S4
- efi
- sources
Files - AsConfig.ini
- AsFac.log
- AsToolCD.txt
- asus.swm
- asus2.swm
- asus3.swm
- bootmgr
- G73.bin
- imageex.exe
- PASS.txt
- recovery.dat
- store.log

My thoughts are to create a bootable USB, the sheer size of all the files, 11.75Gb, is too large for a DVD, re-install the hard drive exactly as the restore DVD's formatted it, boot from the USB and see what happens.

I am still open to any suggestions of a better way to get the final phase of this restore accomplished.

Thanks again for all the suggestions.

 

DVD in 2012? Doh!
Just use USB flash drive, format it using HP usb format tool in NTFS and copy ALL files from iso to it (incl. hied). Perhaps you will need 4 usb flash drives but most likely only 32GB. I depends.

either scratched DVDs or image were took from scratched DVDs. (or wrong program to burn).

 

The DVD doesn't need to be physically damaged to get a bad burn; this is why some people swear up and down by certain brands for blank discs. The quality of the organic dye layer varies from manufacturer to manufacturer.

Try out the USB method - that sounds viable. And let us know what happens!

 

Also some drives don't like discs burnt by other types of drivers or make of discs :/

 

Thank you very much to all who have made suggestions,
I am moving forward; in small frustrating steps.

I thought; since almost all my problems to this point have been write errors, I would try a little test of the files written to the recovery partition. I made a bootable disc (DVD) with all the files except the .swm files, these were the largest and assumedly the image that once placed on the hard drive will become the new operating system. Stuck this disc into the G73 and told it to boot.

It complied; Windows loaded files, Windows started, then a grey and white streaky wallpaper(an Asus image) popped on the screen, a command prompt window opened, no lettering, just a blinking dash at top left, shortly after this window closed a cursor appeared that was controllable by the touch pad. After several minutes it shut off, rebooted and repeated the same routine. I'm certain it would follow this pattern indefinitely.

I decided that the lack of image file is what sent it into the loop, a safe bet; so I thought. Most importantly the file test appeared to be a success.

I found a page that explained How To make Bootable USB, followed the directions to the letter. Plugged it into the notebook went to the BIOS made the adjustment to make the first boot priority an external device and left the BIOS.

It didn't boot.

Remembering Sublime865's comment about AHCI, I went to the BIOS set the AHCI setting to IDE mode and exited.

It booted.

I was thrilled.

It pulled the rug out from under me.

It followed the same routine as the test with no images.

I am baffled.

I wasn't sure what to do next. It seems to me that one of the files copied from the recovery partition is corrupt. The question would be, which one?

Once windows starts what would be the logical next step in restoring the O/S? Would it be safe to assume that whichever file was supposed to launch next is the damaged one?

Could it be the imageex.exe file? Maybe.

So I replaced the imageex.exe file with the one from the original restore ISO's. When I rebooted the machine went into the same loop. I don't think this is a conclusive test because the replacement .exe file could be auto-set to make an image where the replaced file is set to restore the image.

Is it safe to assume that the asus.swm, asus2.swm and asus3.swm are the files that hold the blueprint to the restoration? Between the three of them they are 10,414,414 KB? Windows seven is installed from what, 4.7GB stored on a DVD?

Would it be possible to use some other software that could read the three asus.swm files and restore the disc image?

The only other thing I can think of is to start the restore process from scratch, get another set of files from a new recovery partition and compare the file sizes.

What other options are open to me?

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

 

1. Why? I told you how to prepare USB
drive without hassle. Whatever.

2. Do a clean install of Windows 7. The best way. Ask a Step-by-Step Guide on NBR or ask in official G73 thread.

It was already assumed that image was burnt in 4X speed or lower which decreases impact of the organic dye layer's quality to minimum. Never write a DVD on high speeds.

 

James D:

Put a dunce cap on me and sit me in front of the class.

I was so intent on the files on the recovery partition of the HDD that I didn't even consider setting up the entire restore process to run off a USB. After your last post I realized what you meant. I transferred the files from the ISO's to the USB and plugged it into the G73. It booted and ran the entire restore process, including the O/S installation, without a major glitch. Only thing was each time it asked for the next DVD I had to pull out and reinsert the USB

Seems that all the problems I encountered restoring my G73 to factory defaults were related to read or write errors.

Thank you very much to all those who contributed, each suggestion was a piece of the puzzle and once all the pieces were present everything just fell into place.