Hey everyone. In the past month I have done a complete upgrade excluding the HDD (new case, motherboard, ram, CPU and GPU) I have been running my hard drive on another computer (Celeron 2.6) until I had all the parts. 2 days ago I have got everything i needed and installed everything and upon boot I was restarted numerous times so i started in safe mode and got the mup.sys BSOD, there where other files (associated with daemon tools and alcohol 120%) that came after it which said i could press escape to cancel loading but it never worked. I have since removed these files and even disabled mup.sys and checked all my hardware with this working computer and all is fine, i can run this hard drive without any problems on this comp but when installed into the new one just reboots after loading all drivers. I have been reading hundreds of threads about this issue and have tried many of the solutions without any success, as i can access windows fine on this computer there must be something i can do to make it run on the other.

The only thing i havnt tried is windows recovery as i have lost my copy in a house move.
If anyone has a solution to my proplem i would be greatly appreciative as i am sick of this slow computer and i didnt pay for a non working system.
Thank you
Regards Adam

My system specs are:
CPU: P4 2.6 HT
M/B : Abit IS7
GPU: Abit 256mb GURU
RAM: 1gb
HDD: Seagate 40gb 7200rpm
OS: Windows XP Pro

Adam, see two of my previous posts in this thread:

p. 9, Aug 09, 2005, 01:55 PM
p. 20, Feb 26, 2006, 11:18 AM

You can't just pick up a hard drive with WinXP on it and pop it into any computer and expect it to work.

But you can *get* it to work. You must do a "Repair Install" of XP after you install the old hard drive in the new computer. You will not lose any data or installed applications if you do it correctly.

Jim

Like alot of others apparently, I stumbled on this thread from a Google search on the mup.sys.

I'm trying to help a friend get a machine running again after this plague took over their machine. I've been thru most of the posts in here and tried nearly all of the suggestions to no avail. I've been trying to do a repair install of XP home on this machine, which stopping short of calling a POS would be gratuitous. (E-machines Celeron 2.6)

This is the strangest install of XP I've ever seen. I started it three days ago, and it still hasnt finished. It appears stuck at the "installing drivers" portion of the install. Each driver it tries to install, I get the old "driver hasnt passed XP testing and may make system unstable" message. Been telling it not to install any of them, but it waits anywhere between1-4 hours between each driver/error stretching it out forever. So, like others have mentioned, this one seems hardware/driver related.

Oh well...back to waiting.

Hi, Dave. A couple of comments:

1) If the "mup.sys" problem just started happening all of a sudden, without any obvious change to the system before it began, a repair install may not solve the problem anyway.

2) If you're using a genuine MS WinXP disc to do the repair install (not a copy, not a slipstreamed install disc, not an eMachines system restore disc, etc.), and you're getting those error messages, that's an incredibly bizarre situation, and I'm afraid you've got some much bigger issues going on.

3) If you're using a copy of an MS disc, or a slipstreamed install disc, or some other "not-quite-standard" disc, that might be part of your problem.

For what it's worth, I once tried to perform a repair install on an eMachines box once, and I couldn't make it work, either. In my case, though, when I booted the install CD, it wouldn't even recognize that there was a prior version of XP installed on the hard drive that I could attempt a repair on. Sounds like you've at least gotten past that point.

Jim

Hi Jim...thanks for the comments.

Well...according to the user, it was an "all of the sudden" sort of thing, with no changes made to the system to prompt it.

I am using a genuine Microsoft XP Home CD. The install finally completed late last night, but even after all that, it wouldnt boot all the way into windows. Now, when it boots, I get a blue screen stop error before the splash screen appears. The stop error references the hard drive, and tells me to check if it is terminated properly. I get the same stop error whether I try normal boot, safe mode, etc. I decided to drop the hard drive into another working XP machine (as a second drive) and ran chkdsk, error checking, and virus scan from that machine, which didnt show any problems with the drive itself. Popped it back in, same stop error. I had already replaced the IDE cable with a new one, so I doubt a bad cable is causing it.

I'm left wondering if it just something gone haywire on the motherboard, perhaps the primary IDE is taking a dump. Dang near everything in this machine is built into the motherboard.

Dave

The problem I had with the eMachines box was similar to yours. I had a different error signature, but the bottom line was that the eMachines box kept giving me indications that the hard drive was kaput, but when I put the drive in another machine, I could access data on it just fine, and chkdsk and other diagnostic tools couldn't identify a problem with it.

I was never able to resolve that problem, and ended up building a new computer for them and salvaging what I could from the old drive. Your friend may end up having to do something similar.

Good luck,
Jim

One other thing I forgot to mention. If you haven't given up on it yet, you might try repeating the repair install, but this time forcing it to install all the drivers it keeps complaining about.

At this point, it seems like you have little to lose by trying that, except the time it will take...

Jim

I'm finally up and running.
I found my XP PRO disc and tried a repair install but it just froze after trying to run windows so i came to the conclusion that i was going to back up the files i wanted on the other computer and just do a fresh install, and now its running perfect. Thanks Jim

Glad you're up and running, Adam, but I'm sorry it took a fresh install to get there. If you happen to upgrade again and want to keep running XP, just plan on doing a repair install on you first boot with the new hardware. It's possible that some of the things you tried before doing the repair install corrupted Windows such that a repair install could no longer succeed.

I've upgraded machines and/or moved hard drives to different boxes 6-8 times, and have successfully run the repair install process to get the new machine going with an existing Windows drive. Never lost any data (well, some of the application icons were lost, but the apps themselves still worked fine).

The only time it didn't work was when something was apparently wrong with the hard drive itself (or perhaps the instance of Windows that was installed on it)--that was the eMachines box I mentioned in my replies to Dave, above.

Jim

It's worse than that - he's dead Jim!

I went back to the system I was having MUP problems with (Apr 9th above) and did a fresh install on a new hard drive, but ran into different problems. The new install went fine, until I put in the licence key - no go! Some systems on the site use standard XP Pro & some use Corporate edition & this one turned out to have been installed (by someone else) using the Corporate Edition CD. As the CD used for the installation was not recorded(and was missing), I was using an XP Pro SP2 CD, but it seems that the keys for a corporate licence pack are different from standard XP Pro keys! As the corporate CD is missing. it looks like I have to wait until someone orders another CD from the Gates Empire before I can complete re-installation!

Meanwhile I went to another site, where a system was giving similar problems (BSOD and MUP.SYS) but rapidly getting worse. This one had XP Home edition, but I could not recover it, as XP would not even recognise the hard drive - although the BIOS does! The user had a new XP Pro SP2 CD and licence, so I installed this on a new HDD with no problems. I tried connecting the old drive as master on IDE 2 (which has worked many times for me) but XP Pro will not see the drive at all (although it appears in the BIOS list upon bootup). I have successfully read data off an old drive several times, reguardless of the version of XP or the drive formatting (FAT32 or NTFS) but it looks like this one is dead Jim!

So I have advice for those who can't find the original CD - be careful to use the correct version! I fixed a friends system last year which had part of an English version of MS Office installed over a French version (the problem was quite clear to see as he had French Windows!). A friend of my wifes had tried to install a Hungarian version of XP Home over an English Win ME - result, absolute chaos!

Quite apart from different language versions, does anyone know how many versions of XP there are? I have come across Home, Pro, Corporate and another friend has Tablet edition (which is really weird - it will not run some software that is fine on standars XP Pro) plus server versions - which I try to avoid. I havn't come across Media Edition yet. On top of this, of course there are the Service Packs and patches and as the SP2 CD could be installed on any version of XP (e,g, Home or Pro etc.) I have always used the latest CD to reinstall XP, especially after I had several systems crash when istalling SP2! I had to find a later CD once because a friend had the original XP CD, which he tried to reinstall on a new Motherboard with a Via chipset (there were no drivers for Via USB - but that's really for another posting). Is this correct - that the service pack version doesn't matter (as long as it's the same version of XP) or has anyone had problems with using a newer CD (newer Service pack version) for recovery of a sick XP installation?

Nick

P.S. The problem with the XP Corporate edition system has just been solved. Someone found the correct CD AND the CORRECT key!!!

Nick

OK, here's my story. Last week I had a catastrophic failure that prompted me to replace my motherboard (swollen capacitors) and upgrade to a 320GB SATA drive. I had a motherboard that I bought last year on hand (ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe) which supported SATA, hence the purchase. I worked on my system for three days bringing it back up to full working capacity by rebuilding it from scratch. This past Friday, I went to load some new software, and the screen locked up completely - the three-finger salute didn't help. I hit the reset button to get out of it and that's when the MUP.SYS issue started to happen. All day yesterday I worked to correct the issue - I disconnected everything and only reinstalled the SATA drive, my video card (ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 XT), my keyboard, and a mouse (both PS2).

I played with BIOS settings based on information I found here (thanks folks) and found that if I disabled APIC, downclocked my processor, and disabled USB, I could access the drive. I used Norton Recovery disc to check the drive and fortunately everything was still there, so I didn't lose anything. I tried to used the Fix MBR option but it didn't work. At this point I decided to repair my install using the XP Pro disc, and it seemed like everything was fine until it rebooted and hung at the 34 minute prompt. I used a spare drive to load Windows onto so I could use chkdsk to verify the SATA drive, and it was OK. I left the machine alone for a while and then I had a bright flash of brilliance (in other words, a "D'oh" moment)!

The reason it was stopping at 34 minutes was because I forgot to leave my floppy with the SATA drivers in! Once I did that it went straight through and brought my desktop up. I updated all of the Windows components until there were no more and it's up and running. I'm still running it barebones, and right now I'm ghosting the drive to an old 13.6 IDE drive I had lying around. After the ghosting is complete, I'll hook everything back up one by one:

USB 2.0 PCI card
(all of the following are USB)
iPAQ
GamePro Joypad
HP OfficeJet
Kenwood Keg
Logitech mouse
Tritton hard drive enclosure (only use it for 6-in-one card reader)

I'll post a progress report later to let you know how it went. Later this week I'm picking up a Netgear SC101 networked IDE drive storage unit (think mini-SAN) to maximize my "off-campus" storage.

That's my story - again thanks to everyone else that has posted here.

Been up and running for 7 hours so far even with multiple reboots after loading software and attaching hardware. The system is stable for now.

Problems with a Shuttle SN25P

Config AMD 3.5G 64 bit 939 proc, 1GB mem, 120GB SATA HDD, Nvidia geforce 6600 pcie, LG DVDRW

A friend arrived with a sick SN25P that would not boot, it did not take long to work out that it was hanging at mup.sys. I arrived at this site after using google and I was immediately amazed at the size of this problem. I tried a number of things after reading the posts on this forum. System recovery console used to run chkdsk, cleared cmos using the onboard jumper, copied a good copy of mup.sys from a working sytem, all of which did not work.

My first break came after reinstalling windows I could get into safe mode for the first time but a normal boot would still not work. I tried a number of things in safe mode that did work. After reading a thread that suggested the problems could be nvidia driver related. I entered device manager and tried to roll back the graphics driver but I had no previous version available. I then took the brave ( stupid! ) step of removing the nvidia graphics card from my system. Rebooted to find that it booted up perfectly !!

I now have the problem of finding a good nvidia graphics driver. I used the latest version downloaded from the Nvidia website

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/winxp_2k_84.21_uk.html

I installed the Version: 84.21 drivers rebooted and all is still working after rebooting. I will post an update if run in to any further trouble. Thanks to all of you fellow mup.sys sufferers without you I would not have fixed my version of this problem.

I was working on the following problem when i encountered the mup.sys issue:

On a new computer build (albeit using a second hand K8N Neo2 Platinum mobo and AMD 3500+ Skt939 "Newcastle" processor) the system would not proceed past the boot screen when all four of my SATA drives were connected. They were all recognised in the BIOS, and had been checked individually.
I went through some fault finding steps which ended with taking out the combined USB/IEEE1394a/SATA card, which then allowed the drives to be recognised upon boot.
However, the system froze after a few seconds in windows, and from then it would not proceed past MUP.SYS.

Because of the changes i made before the problem, i tried going back to the previous settings but without any success. I resorted to disconnecting all of the SATA drives, resetting the CMOS using the jumper, and booting into Windows as a basic system.
Next step was to add the first pair of SATA drives, all ok so far
Adding the final two SATA drives caused the same problem, so i quickly reset the sytem and removed the drives.
Replaceing the combined card and connecting the SATA drives to that allowed the system to boot up as previously, I have no idea what casuses the problem with the SATA drives not initialising/being recognised by windows, but at least i have found a way arougnt he MUP.SYS issue without a reinstall!

So, in summary, try taking the system back to basics, and keep your fingers crossed!

A week later, and no problems!

Hey not sure if anyone remembers me i posted on here with a MUP.sys error... The simplest way of fixing it, i found, isn't with dodgy variables like keyboards or bios... just wipe your hard drive and start afresh =] since then i've had no errors whatsoever... before anyone states the obvious and says well you'll lose all your work; my repsonse is learn to back your files up before this error occurs =P i didn't and i lost three years stuff from it lol. Anyhoo hope thats helped at least someone out there.
Rob.

Same problem with the hanging windows load on mup. Happened on a computer thats been chugging away for about 3 years with no serious issues. I'm pretty sure the cause of the problem has to do with a poweroutage that happened during a BootVis reboot session.

Will try some of the things listed above and report back.

Rob Jacklin: Glad to hear you found a solution for your situation. However, your advice to others is misleading. Even a wipe-and-reload-Windows approach is not guaranteed to get rid of the "mup.sys problem". As many people here have posted, often the problem is that Windows is choking on things a reload would not correct: faulty cables, BIOS / CMOS settings, etc. In my case, I had a bad hard drive data cable (not my boot drive). I could have reformatted my boot drive 'til the cows came home, and would have continued to have the "mup.sys problem" no matter how many times I reinstalled WinXP. Until I replaced the cable, WinXP would have continued to choke on it.

Folks scanning this post should not read Rob's post and simply assume that "if all else fails, I can always format and reinstall". Depending on the underlying situation triggering the problem, that may or may not work.

OK... its not just a hardware problem. I ran into this problem recently and I read through the entire thread to try to solve it. Tried everything... and just as I was about to give up, I tried one last thing and solved it. What was that 'last thing'?? New driver for a SCSI raid card. It is kinda convoluted and may only be applicable to my unique system, but I think it is important for others to know that a simple driver upgrade may solve the problem.

Background: About six months ago I set up a Dell SC1420 server as a graphics workstation running XP (Don't ask why... I just did OK???). No problems with the entire process. Just 2 weeks ago I tried to set up a second (newer) SC1420 in exactly the same way. This second system is the one that ran into the problem. I'm not sure why it ran into the problem, but thats not important. Its the solution thats important.

As far as I can tell, the major differences between the two systems are that the first one ran BIOS Rev A02 and the second is on Rev A03. Not sure it this is important... but Dell doesn't 'certify' the SC1420 for XP. Both systems came with a Dell PERC 320/DC RAID controller. This is also essentially an Adaptec 2200s. Because Dell doesn't provide XP certified drivers for the PERC 320 I used Adaptec's dirvers. When I repeated the process on the second system (BIOS A03) I got the mup.sys error. Frustrating as hell. Especially since I had cut the deviders out of the x8 PCI-E slot so I could use a x16 graphics card. The card was my red herring...

After I tried EVERYTHING (I am persistent), out of despriation I tried using the Dell Server 2003 certified drivers for the PERC 320. Turns out it IS XP compliant and everything ran like a dream (including the Leadtek nVidia 7900 x16 card).

Bottom line: Try updating/ rolling back your drivers.... it may solve your mup.sys problem.

Cheers

Gordon
ps - the x16 card is a bit throttled back because it is running in an x8 slot.... but it still runs like a dream and will beat anything short of a dual SLI system.

As a hint to others ---

I experienced the same issues as everyone who posted to this list. The problem started directly after following the ASUS directions to upgrade my BIOS on my K8V SE motherboard. After upgrade, the system wouldn't boot (a known issue). ASUS suggested pulling the power and removing the battery ... which I did. And this did allow the BIOS to bootstrap. But XP SP2 died at MUP.sys as the last loaded driver.

On the ASUS motherboard, there is a RTC clear jumper. I found that moving this jumper to the CLEAR posts and then back to the normals post and then powering up the system cleared the MUP.sys hanging. (I was absolutely not in the mood for reinstalling windows and was ready to walk barefoot over red hot coals if it would insure a successful boot.) At this point, things seem fine.

Just one more thing to try for those who receive this monumentally helpful microsoft symptom.