XP Configuration Error : "Code Purple"

scootergizer · January 31st, 2003, 06:31 PM

Ive had one of the most confusing error messages today. I work in technical support and one of the customers I had today recieved an error out of the box that its terminology is a bit puzzling. The customer has an OEM version of XP and during its first boot after he hit the windows splash he recieved an error message "configuration error : Code Purple. I cant find any reference to this even through microsoft. While I was looking for a reference to this i was having the customer do busy work : restart. reset CMOS defaults. This seems to have resolved it, the caller was able to load to the original windows config screen. but I dont believe that it was reset that had done it, I cant logically think why it would have. Im mainly just curious as to what the error is, "Code Purple". Anyone experience this before?

tekmonkey · January 31st, 2003, 06:37 PM

A quick google search came up With a BOMB THREAT code but I doubt thats what it is but Ill keep looking for ya.

Welcome to TechIMO

scootergizer · January 31st, 2003, 06:46 PM

Yeah I saw that when i was looking, and no believe it or not I dont think that would be applicable. Thank you though for your ever so insiteful information

goldenbuddha · January 31st, 2003, 06:56 PM

sarcasm when asking for assistance is very rude..

scootergizer · January 31st, 2003, 07:13 PM

I know him

dont worry

scootergizer · February 11th, 2003, 06:11 PM

for future reference if anyone needs to know : it looks like the OEM software may cause this in most cases if it is not active in your start up list . why it occured out of the box is still odd but if it occurs out of the blue (or purple heheheheh....sigh) then try enabling any bundled OEM software if you can get into msconfig from safemode.

lenkeith · March 12th, 2004, 11:53 AM

Hi guys, I know this is late but it is by chance that i stumbled upon this forum. Code purple will only happen to ODM computers and as far as i know, HP and Compaq are one of those that may have this error. It means that the motherboard is not tattooed properly, or not tattooed at all or it simply means that it's faulty.
As you know, commercial PCs always come with a quick restore CD or recovery partition and companies use a tattoo on the motherboard to make it unique so that the quick restore cd will only run on it's assigned PC. Like a every lock has its unique key. So the tattoo is the motherboard's unique code.

dogbert681 · December 3rd, 2004, 01:32 AM

I got the same message on my HP Pavilion. The following is what I had to do to fix it.

Turn on the PC, insert the 1st Recovery CD into the CD drive. Then turn it off again.

Turn it on once more and press the ESC key repeatedly until you see the boot options menu. Choose the correct CD to boot from, if you have more than one.

When the recovery CD prompts for the type of recovery to do hit the Ctrl and Backspace keys at the same time.

From the next screen choose option 6.

WARNING!!!!!!!!
This will perform a low level format of the hard drive YOU WILL LOOSE ALL DATA. Make sure you have a good backup of your data BEFORE performig this procedure.

After that the Normal recovery of the system using the CD should work fine.

craig2055 · December 22nd, 2004, 11:47 AM

I just found out that my motherboard was dead and I needed to replace it. I asked HP for support in finding out what kind of board available today was compatible with the one I have, which is no longer made. (TriGem Santa Fe KL?)
They wanted me to ship it to them for 250$ and they would fix it. I said it was not cost effective to spend that much money on it, but I could justify spending 50-100$ on a new board and doing it myself. They said I would have to carry it to a near by service center to get it tattooed so the recovery CD's would work after I changed out the board. Would the steps that were posted in the previous post get me past that problem? Also, any help in finding a suitable replacement board would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. (I have a HP Pavilion XT933 if that helps)

Rudedog15 · February 28th, 2006, 04:20 PM

So, I have tried all these different ways to reboot my computer and I still get the Configuration error (Code Purple). Anyone knows where i could get these infamous disks that will re-tattoo the BIOS on my M376N Media Center?

The more I look at things out there, the less likely I am about buying Brand name computers (HP, IBM, etc) I believe its time to look at other options now, I think if everyone would do that, these people will stop all these schemes to force us to pay their outrageous prices for services. Lets remember the old IBM and their Micro-channel crap and how soon they had to discontinue that architecture. Anyways, hoping to be able to find a solution for this.

Rudy