title: Reading dump files - Windows
body: <p>I am looking for a documentation to read the content of a crash dump file which happens to be saved under “c:\windows\minidump” folder.<br>
  To read the dump files, I am using “dumpchk.exe” tool from Microsoft (<a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/dumpchk" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/dumpchk</a>)
  . I have used the command </p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>"dumpchk C:\Windows\Minidump\DumpFile.dmp | clip"</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>to extract the data from dump file.
  The output comes like (it is just the sample data and not the full content from the file): </p>
  
  <p>--Sample START<br>
  *Microsoft (R) Windows Debugger Version 6.3.9600.17788 AMD64'
  Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.<br>
  Loading Dump File [C:\Windows\Minidump\101517-22453-01.dmp]
  Mini Kernel Dump File: Only registers and stack trace are available<br>
  <em>Symbol search path is: <strong></em> Invalid *</strong></p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Symbol loading may be unreliable without a symbol search path.           *</li>
  <li>Use .symfix to have the debugger choose a symbol path.                   *</li>
  <li>After setting your symbol path, use .reload to refresh symbol locations. *
  ****************************************************************************>……..
  <em>Bugcheck code 0000009F</em>
  Arguments 00000000<code>00000004 00000000</code>0000012c ffffe000<code>3203e880 ffffd000</code>d21a9980
  …….**  </li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>--Sample END</p>
  
  <p>Now, with all that output I really have no clue how to interpret the content of this file in plain English so that I can use that in my application.</p>
  
  <p>During my hunt, I have found a very wonderful tool from NirSoft (as usual, this guy is awesome. He has solved so many puzzles which you will find nowhere…)
  <a href="https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html#DownloadLinks" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html#DownloadLinks</a>
  I have really no idea how he had accomplished the following results in his app:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/DAN4g.gif" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/DAN4g.gif" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
  
  <p>[Please note that the above tool's result is being used just as a reference to show what I am looking for.]
  Basically, I need to find out the <strong>culprit driver (Caused by Driver)</strong> which caused the crash. Therefore, looking for some documentation so that I can understand the content of dump and parse them.  </p>
  
  <p>Any details are appreciated. Thanks.</p>