BSOD issues... could it be my harddrive?

[Reyngel]

Alright, so I've been suffering through a seemingly random BSOD issue for about a month now. I'll detail the occurence, and then I'll detail the steps I've taken to correct it:

The occurence:

First, my specs: Z60m, Windows XP Pro, 2Ghz, 2GB, ATi 128mb, 15.4", DVD RW.

It seems to happen almost randomly. Sometimes it pops up when I click on something, sometimes it happens when I try to load something, and sometimes it happens when I'm not even at my computer(I know this because I'll come back to the computer waiting at the login screen due to the blue screen/auto-reboot). The stop error that comes up varies, but one I can recall is:

0x0000008E (0xC0000005, 0xF7A27FC0, 0xF7A27CBC)

The last time it happened, after Windows had restarted and notified me that I had experienced a serious error, I copied some of the log information down:

C:\DOCUME~1\User\LOCALS~1\Temp\WERa630.dir00\Mini112307-01.dmp
C:\DOCUME~1\User\LOCALS~1\Temp\WERa630.dir00\sysdata.xml

I can never predict when it shows up. Sometimes it even shows up while the computer is booting up, and I'm just sitting there waiting for Windows to load.

What I've done to fix it:

At first I thought that maybe it was a critical error with my copy of Windows, so last night, I backed up all my files onto an external harddrive, deleted the partition, reformatted and reinstalled Windows XP. In the middle of the Setup portion of the install, it blue screened! That was very upsetting, because it seemed to indicate to me that it was probably a more serious hardware issue. I tried installing PC Doctor, but it said there was an error in the install, so I couldn't run it. It looked like maybe it was a Java error, so I installed Java, but then Java had a problem installing as well... just ridiculous.

After doing a search of these forums, I am currently doing an error-check via Properties>Tools. I did it to the main C: drive, and now I'm doing it to my external harddrive(although I doubt it's a problem there, because I had a BSOD incident while reinstalling XP last night, and the harddrive wasn't even connected at that time).

Could it be a harddrive problem? Or worse yet, a motherboard problem? How might I be able to figure out what's causing it?

Any help would be MUCH appreciated. I'm no longer on IBM's warranty, so it's all up to me now to either fix it or buy a new ThinkPad.

[barrywohl]

I'd say that it could be motherboard or hard drive or RAM.

I suspect your RAM is two sticks of 1 gb each. Why don't you run your system first with one stick and then with the other and try each of the slots. That gives you four configurations to try:
Stick 1 in slot A
Stick 1 in slot B
Stick 2 in slot A
Stick 2 in slot B and see if you can isolate it to either slot and to either stick.

I'm not sure if you can run either slot as the only slot, but you'll find out.

Barry

[Reyngel]

How do I get to where the RAM is so that I can swap them out? Is there a how-to link somewhere?

[ryengineer]

Please refer to the following:

Memory removal movie - ThinkPad Z60m, Z61e, Z61m, Z61p.

Memory installation movie - ThinkPad Z60m, Z61e, Z61m, Z61p

For future reference, keep the following link handy, it contains almost all bits of information you would want to know about your machine in terms of hardware:

Hardware Maintenance Manual - ThinkPad Z60m