How can I fix "Driver PNP Watchdog" error if window's won't boot?

Does it have a removable battery? If so, try removing it then attempt boot from reinstall media then attempt a custom install.

Go to a working computer, download, create a bootable copy, then perform a clean install.

	Step 1: How to download official Windows 10 ISO files 

	[http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki...](http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki/windows_10-windows_install/how-to-download-official-windows-10-iso-files/35cde7ec-5b6f-481c-a02d-dadf465df326)



	Step 2: How to: Perform a clean install of Windows 10

	[http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/wiki...](http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/wiki/insider_wintp-insider_install/how-to-do-a-clean-install-of-windows-10/aef0ae63-2117-41ee-a8ea-4a3181625b08)



If there are files on the drive you want to recover, see -  How to: Perform a Custom install of Windows 10

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/wiki...

Similar stupid backwards compatibility issue but slightly different.

I used to run an Adaptec Raid controller series 6 under Windows7 (hardware Raid 10). It was working fine.

I uninstalled the Adaptec controller for some obscure reason I don't remember and then ran the same disks under Intel controller in Raid1 hardware (after a reformat of course). Some time after, I migrated the PC to W10 (no fresh reinstall). No issue ever (on that machine) with Adaptec or the migrations.

I needed again more SATA disks. I wanted also to re-create a new W7 OS as one of my apps could simply not run in W10 (Dell X-Rite colorimeter software with large gamut display U2713H from 2013 seen as "too old").

So I simply tried to reinstall the Adaptec controller. The OS remained on the disks attached to the motherboard Intel controller, unchanged.  This is mentioned as the BIOS changes if the Adaptec Raid would have contained a bootable volume (not the case here).  

Using the old drivers (from W7 days, no update), the old Adaptec app for W7 was apparently running well in Windows 10. It could configure the 4 disks connnected in a Raid10 array. But Windows 10 would not recognise the created disks, so recognised by Adaptec app but not by the W10 system, which had never occured to me under W7. This controller had always been reliable and effective.

So, I decided to update the Adaptec app to W10 (this controller is declared compatible W10 by Adaptec) and to get the latest W10 drivers from Adaptec (easy to get).

Serious miseries started after this installation (installing the .inf for the drivers and .msi for the app), yet unsolved. Did I do this wrong? Possibly.

Three kinds of problems:

either the W10 at boot takes for ever with no result (dots spinning in circle for ever, with the W10 OS on SSD) & I have to trigger a motherboard reboot to get out of the loop;

or the W10 goes in repair after 3 attemps (or sometimes directly afterwards) resulting in a blue screen with "Driver PNP Watchdog" as a kind message at the bottom of the blue screen;

or W10 would finally boot (after a repair) but the new Adaptec app would no longer "see" the disks attached to the Adaptec controller.

If I take the controller out, W10 boots normally systematically. If I put it back in, W10 runs into problems as above. So, the issue is clearly related to the controller in W10 AND to the newly installed W10 compatible Adaptec drivers AND possibly to the fact that this controller board had been installed previously (remaining registry entries leaving inconsistencies? Who knows.)

I am at the stage of debugging. I reset the F8 possibility in BCD. I try now to identify the culprit driver when loaded (ntbtlog.txt in c:\Windows). I shall see.

I am here to see if someone had encountered also the "Driver PNP Watchdog" error and which method or approach was used to solve it well after identifying the incompatible hardware component. I simply wish this controller to work as before in W7 if I can.

It seems I had met problem like yours without "Driver PNP Watchdog" BSOD, but just can't recognize my extra HDD.

When I reinstall Win10 for my another laptop, which use SSD as main disk, and an HDD as extra. After the Win10 installation, my HDD disks didn't show, which worked properly in my last Win10 and Win7.

Finally, I found that it caused by IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller. I had to change this driver from Standard SATA AHCI Controller (by Microsoft, chose defaultly for Win10), to AMD SATA Controller (to match my AMD CPU). And the HDD disks came out again.

So, I can just suggest you two steps for different problems:

1. Get into BIOS, to set SATA mode from AHCI to IDE, for the moment;
2. Try to change IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller driver, to another right one.

I bought a used SurfacePro3 and the screen broke after it fell. I bought a new display with digitizer off of Amazon. After that I got stuck on the Surface screen with the spinning. Did all the suggestions.. Changed bios to read USB --- > SSD, restarted, same issue, then I saw this. Because my screen was no long glued to the pc I was able to unplug the touchscreen cable from the Surface, it's the smaller one, was then able to get to recovery. I had to leave this unplugged during the entire recovery phase.

I have finally managed to find a solution by myself. Please bear in mind that it might not work for you but at least give it a try.

Install Ubuntu (I formatted the entire disk, but you can try to make a partition and not erase Windows);

Once it runs, try to find any hardware that does not work at all or intermittently (in my case it was the touchpad);

Unmount that piece of hardware if possible;

Install (or check if you can repair) Windows.

hello, could you please go into more detail on how you managed to fix it? my friend gave me her laptop with the exact same issue (stuck on loading OS, when tried to boot from USB, BSOD with the watchdog error comes up). she also told me she's had some problems with her touchpad prior to this.

i've been able to boot into live distribution of manjaro, and the touchpad didn't work, so i had to plug in my mouse. after reading this, im pretty confident we might have run into the same issue but i'm not sure what you've meant by unmounting the touchpad. could you explain it a bit more? thanks :)

Thanks for your answer but it doesn't really help me. Have tried quite a few times rven left it reboot on its own for a whole night it just doesn't.

And what's even worrying is that it doesn't even boot with a bootable usb stick