Help! Watchdog Violation

[Eric3988]

Recently I've been tweaking my PC in anticipation for the release of Fallout 4. I've added a 1TB Samsung 850 EVO and a 2TB Seagate external HDD. The SSD appears to run great by all means but the external hard drive seems to have caused me the dpc watchdog violation error on my system. I suspect it caused it because in no less than a few hours of being connected this happened. I was simply browsing Chrome when it happened. Now no matter what I do my PC won't go into Windows. It tried to repair the system on its own and failed. I was in the process of backing up the system image onto the Seagate when this happened.

Anyways, am I correct to assume that the external caused the error? I doubt the SSD caused it as it ran flawlessly last night even with benchmarking. How can avoid this from happening again? Should I avoid using the external again? And if all else fails am I going to have to reinstall Windows 7 then upgrade to 10? I apologize if these are rudimentary questions but I don't know anyone personally to bounce around these kind of questions. Thanks for the help in advance. If anyone has any questions regarding my system configuration please feel free to ask.

 

[brandonwh64]

More info on that BSOD

http://www.reviversoft.com/blog/2012/11/a-guide-to-blue-screens-of-death-dpc-watchdog-violation/

 

[Eric3988]

Thanks. I doubt my Samsung did that as it's brand new. Therefore it should have the proper firmware. That Seagate on the other hand, I bought two years ago...

 

[rtwjunkie]

More info on that BSOD

http://www.reviversoft.com/blog/2012/11/a-guide-to-blue-screens-of-death-dpc-watchdog-violation/

Thanks, good info for the future (hopefully not)! I had never heard of this.

 

[Eric3988]

FYI, I couldn't restore my system using the options I was getting in recovery mode. I couldn't enter safe mode to get into windows and subsequently had to reinstall my OS. Finally got my desktop back up and running with a few of my frequently played games installed. If anything this experience emphasizes the need to have proper backups in place as I lost my Witcher 3 save data which was located in my documents. I thought GOG Galaxy used cloud storage for game saves like Steam, but it doesn't. I configured MS Onedrive to backup my documents and now all I need to do is create a system image and I think I'll be set. Everything is in a good state to revert to if I ever need to revert back.