Reference number: CH001142

Windows stop BAD_POOL_HEADER error.

Question:

Windows stop BAD_POOL_HEADER error.

Cause:

This error is generated when a driver or part of Windows does not allocate the memory properly, and can be caused by any of the below possibilities.

1. Bad hardware drivers.
2. Issues with NTFS file system and/or disk write issues.
3. Issue with software program, e.g. anti-virus scanner.

Answer:

Recover Windows to an earlier copy

If you're unable to boot into Windows because of this error, you'll need to boot into Windows Safe Mode and recover Windows to an earlier copy before being able to attempt any of the other suggestions mentioned below.

Information about booting into Safe Mode can be found on document CHSAFE.

Information about recovering your version of Windows to an earlier copy can be found on document CH000589.

Install the latest service packs

Hardware drivers that are installed by third-party programs commonly cause this issue. Many of the errors will not be encountered if you have the latest Microsoft Windows Service Pack installed on the computer.

Additional information about updating Windows can be found on document CH000545.

Get the latest hardware drivers

Install the latest drivers for any newly installed hardware device. If no new hardware has been installed make sure you have the latest drivers for the below devices.

• Video card
• Network card or router (if present)
• Any removable or external disk drive

A listing of computer drivers and links to hardware manufacturers driver pages can be found on our driver's section.

Install the latest updates for software programs

Get the latest updates for software programs running on your computer. If you've recently installed a new program and have been getting this error, make sure no available updates are available for that program through the developers web site. If no updates are available try uninstalling the program through the Add/Remove programs in Control Panel.

If no programs have been recently installed, temporarily disable programs from starting up with your computer by following the steps in document CHTSR and if this resolves the issue it's likely one of the background programs are causing your issue and either need to be updated or uninstalled from the computer.

Issue between drivers/software and Microsoft's Indexing Service

Disable the Indexing Service by following the below steps. Note: You must have administrator rights to follow the below steps.

1. Click Start, Run, and type services.msc and press enter.
2. Once in the services window scroll down to "Indexing Service" and double-click it.
3. In the Index Services Properties window change the startup type to either "Disabled" or "Manual".

Issue with disk drive

As mentioned in the above causes to this error, if programs are having issues writing to the disk drive this error can be generated. Run a ScanDisk on this computer to make sure no errors are present on the drive and if present that they're fixed if possible.

See our ScanDisk page for additional information about this utility and help running it.

Bad hardware

Although this issue is almost always resolved by following the above steps, because this issue is generated with bad memory allocations or bad disk writes, it is also possible that the error could be related to bad hardware (e.g. bad memory or bad hard disk drive).

Before assuming that either of these is bad, we suggest erasing everything and re-installing Windows. This will help verify without doubt that this is not a software issue. If after re-installing Windows, and updating it with all the latest updates, you continue to get this error we suggest replacing the memory, hard disk drive, or both.

Steps on erasing everything and starting over can be found on document CH000186.

Additional information:

• See document CH001141 for additional information and help with troubleshooting blue screen error messages.