Shut down problems...

Some users have gotten an error message similar to the following when attempting either to shutdown or restart Win XP:





STOP 0000009F, DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE


STOP 0x0000001E: KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED


STOP 0x000000D1: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL





TechNet and the Microsoft Knowledge Base have numerous articles
discussing this type of error condition; for example, these. As a
review of these articles will show, these are commonly device driver
problems, but may also be caused by troublesome software (such as the
notorious CrashGuard), or a problem in a system service. MSKB article
Q262575 discusses a shutdown problem of this type, known to exist in
Windows 2000 due to a resource (IRQ) conflict, if you have PACE
Interlok anti-piracy software installed. This problem may occur in
Windows XP as well.

Microsoft advises the following as one approach to these problems:
Restart the computer. Press F8 during the restart and select Last Known
Good Configuration. If you catch the problem when it first occurs
(meaning you likely have installed only one or two drivers or new
service), this will return you to a previous working condition. (Would
System Restore accomplish the same thing? I dont know, and dont have a
broken system to test it on.)




Microsoft reported similarly that these STOP code error message occur
when Windows XP is trying to shut down devices. He says that he has
seen this twice: once with Logitech Quickcam installed (with an
unsupported driver), and once with a USB DSL modem that would hang if
it wasnt disconnected before shutdown.