Windows XP suddenly rebooting on startup....any ideas
Discussion
Morning all,
I've got a bit of a problem with my PC and Windows XP on startup. Basically, it reboots every time I try and get into it, but at different points. Maybe on the Windows Loading screen, maybe on the username screen, and once I reached my desktop and bang.....reboot again.
I've no idea what's causing this since I'm writing this post on the same machine....but in Windows Vista Beta 2!!!! So it's not a hardware problem (I think).
I'm just doing a thorough virus scan now I'm waiting for the results but in the meantime, does anyone else have any ideas what could be wrong. (Everything worked perfectly the day before.....)
I've got a bit of a problem with my PC and Windows XP on startup. Basically, it reboots every time I try and get into it, but at different points. Maybe on the Windows Loading screen, maybe on the username screen, and once I reached my desktop and bang.....reboot again.
I've no idea what's causing this since I'm writing this post on the same machine....but in Windows Vista Beta 2!!!! So it's not a hardware problem (I think).
I'm just doing a thorough virus scan now I'm waiting for the results but in the meantime, does anyone else have any ideas what could be wrong. (Everything worked perfectly the day before.....)
trackdemon said:
Sounds like something fundamental to the OS is corrupt - have you tried booting to safe mode and system restore to a time prior to the problems?
I tried safe mode but that gets the same reboot issues, plus I've not done any system restores lately. Everything was seemingly running perfectly before today.
I'm beginning to think a total reinstall is my only solution right now :s Thank goodness I had Vista installed!!!
Before I go ahead with any new installations, does anyone have any ideas?
Also, by performing the repair function on the XP CD (non SP2), will this totally screw up my install or will it recognise I have updates installed and simply fix what it needs to fix without messing up the new patches, etc...????
Darth Dave said:
Sounds like a failed update on the machine or a corrupt file. As mentioned above, restore from the recovery console should set you on your way.
Update!
OK, so I tried a system restore. Well, unfortunately I couldn't do that because Windows wouldn't let me anywhere near Windows. I even found a driver which seemed to be causing a blue screen (hence reboots), so I deleted this using Vista and tried again. Unfortunately another driver cropped up, but what I noticed this time was a warning message that popped up momentarily before XP bluescreen showing Kernel error.....(bad news I think).
So plan B. I decided to do a repair through the XP CD. This made everything worse since all my updates were lost and my accounts totally messed up and finally leaving one messed up XP installation that doesn't boot. On top of that, I had to repair the boot loader with the Vista DVD to get Vista booted up again to save my files to DVD.
Unfortunately, I come across another problem where Vista is a pig to set the file permissions and ownership allowing me to physically copy the files to my backup hard disk.
Up to this point I think I've spent over 10 hours trying to fix everything!!!!
Plan C. Delete old Windows XP and start again.
Just finished the updates and ZoneAlarm install.......what a nightmare!!!!
And I still don't know what caused the problem!
trackdemon said:
Darth Dave said:
Ahhh - the joys of a Microsoft OS! Happens all the time (especially when you have 6000+ users to support). 
The stupid thing is here, this has never ever happened before. Never! I've had this XP setup now for 3 years. I've changed hardware (CPU, graphics card, memory, TV card, hard disks), everything apart from the mobo which is when I last installed and it's been perfect.
The other curious thing is that there were no updates the day before the computer went all tits up. I've got a feeling my hard disk is about to go caput since I can't work out any other reason why this could be happening. Also when I finally managed to reinstall a fresh XP copy, a MASSIVE number of errors appeared on one of my paritions of the same drive XP is installed on. As such, I've got a wee SMART diagnostic utility running in my system tray monitoring for any unusual things that may be happening. Lucky it's a new drive so I have a warranty, but does anyone have any experiences with Samsung drives going caput?
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