Memtest86

[ultrazen]

Hello,
Hi & thanks so much for your work & program,

I think I have corrupted RAM in my Toshiba laptop A305-S6837) & I wanted to test it so I downloaded MEMTEST86. For unknown reasons though, all the CD/DvD's (about 12 of them) I have burned will just not boot. {Yes in the BIOS I have enabled the CD as the first boot device}. I have tried both memtest86-4.0a.iso & memtest86-3.5b.iso. I burned them on a Toshiba laptop 'Win 7 Home' computer. [I did find that my Firewall (Agnitum Outpost) was preventing all the burns so I turned it off].

With memtest86-4.0a.iso, only 3 files appeared burned;

ISOLINUX
SRC_V40A (144Kb)
SRC_V40A (132Kb)

With memtest86-3.5b.iso, 5 files burned;

ISOLINUX
README
SRC_V35B (176Kb)
SRC_V35B (187Kb)
USRGUIDE

Then I tried burning only the files WITHIN ISOLINUX & I got 6 files;

BOOT.CAT
BOOT.TXT
ISOLINUX.bin
ISOLINUX.CFG
MEMTEST
MEMTEST. P

I tried booting all these CD's/DvD's on a Win XP SP3 Toshiba laptop but nothing happens & it just boots into Windows... until it crashes or freezes within moments, because of a suspected RAM problem.

Please advise. With much thanks,
Rob

 

[ksiemb]

Hello,
Hi & thanks so much for your work & program,

I think I have corrupted RAM in my Toshiba laptop A305-S6837) & I wanted to test it so I downloaded MEMTEST86. For unknown reasons though, all the CD/DvD's (about 12 of them) I have burned will just not boot. {Yes in the BIOS I have enabled the CD as the first boot device}. I have tried both memtest86-4.0a.iso & memtest86-3.5b.iso. I burned them on a Toshiba laptop 'Win 7 Home' computer. [I did find that my Firewall (Agnitum Outpost) was preventing all the burns so I turned it off].

With memtest86-4.0a.iso, only 3 files appeared burned;

ISOLINUX
SRC_V40A (144Kb)
SRC_V40A (132Kb)

With memtest86-3.5b.iso, 5 files burned;

ISOLINUX
README
SRC_V35B (176Kb)
SRC_V35B (187Kb)
USRGUIDE

Then I tried burning only the files WITHIN ISOLINUX & I got 6 files;

BOOT.CAT
BOOT.TXT
ISOLINUX.bin
ISOLINUX.CFG
MEMTEST
MEMTEST. P

I tried booting all these CD's/DvD's on a Win XP SP3 Toshiba laptop but nothing happens & it just boots into Windows... until it crashes or freezes within moments, because of a suspected RAM problem.

Please advise. With much thanks,
Rob

Open the case & remove RAM sticks. Boot with one stick till you find the problem.

 

[ultrazen]

Thanks for that but I would like to TEST the RAM, So I'm trying to figure out why MEMTEST86 won't boot and exactly WHICH FILES are supposed to be burned onto the BOOT CD.

 

[PhilFrisbie]

Don't worry about the boot disks; I think you are being distracted down the wrong path. Are you sure you do not have a hardware failure that is affecting the CD/DVD drive also? Do you have an external CD/DVD driver you can try booting to?

Also,ksiemb gave you a valid and very simple diagnostic suggestion, one that I have used many times over the last 15 years. If you suspect the memory and cannot boot into Windows, simply remove one stick and try booting again. If it still does not boot, then swap the memory and try again. If it will not boot with either one then you likely have a motherboard or CPU problem.