When you receive a STOP error message or a fatal system error message, a Memory.dmp file may not be created.

Note Before troubleshooting the problem, make sure that the computer is correctly configured to save a crash dump file.

There are several reasons why the Memory.dmp file is not being created when your computer encounters a STOP message:

•	The Memory.dmp file already exists and the option Overwrite Any Existing File (found in Control Panel System) is not selected. It is a good idea to leave this box checked and to move or copy the current Memory.dmp file.
•	The paging file on the boot drive is not large enough. To use the "Write Debugging Information To" feature to obtain a complete memory dump file, the paging file on the boot drive must be at least as large as physical memory + 1 MB. When you create a kernel memory dump file, the file is usually around one-third the size of the physical memory on the system. Of course, this quantity will vary, depending on your circumstances.
•	The paging file is not on the %systemroot% partition. When the STOP error occurs, the system crash dump is written out to the pagefile on the root of the %systemroot% drive.
•	There is not room for the Memory.dmp file in the path specified in Control Panel for writing the memory dump.
•	It is possible that the SCSI controller is bad or the system crash is caused by a bad SCSI controller board.
•	If you specify a non-existent path, a dump file will not be written. For example, if you specify the path as C:\Dumpfiles\Memory.dmp and no C:\Dumpfiles folder exists, a dump file will not be written.

Note The administrator can configure the computer to generate system event log and to send alerts to specific computers or users upon a system crash. This is a very useful feature of Windows for monitoring systems for system crashes when away from computers and when system configured for automatic reboot.