Friends computer just keeps restarting?

[pirred908]

My friends computer just keeps restarting itself. As soon as its done loading windows xp, it restarts itself. I can only see the blue desktop color for about 2 seconds. He said it was working fine this morning. Please help.

 

[Carbonadium4]

was the system patched ? boot into safe mode, F8 right after bios , see if you can see anything in event log.. does he have firewall ? rpc bug ?

 

[pirred908]

Nothing was changed from the time he last used it. It does the same thing if I try to boot in safe mode (Just keeps restarting). Theres no firewall, I believe. I'm not sure what a "RPC BUG" is. Please help.

 

[Sonic587]

Specs?

 

[Schadenfroh]

sounds like he got hit by a virus, did he have all the latest updates form windows update? was he running an uptodate fire wall and antivirus?

 

[Gurck]

Could be sasser, disconnect any internet connection physically (LAN, phone cord, whatever) and try booting up, see what happens. If that works, enable the firewall, connect, and install all critical updates using IE at microsoft.com. Could also be someone pranking him by putting a shutdown command in the start folder, if anyone has access to his PC that's a possibility.

 

[pirred908]

It an old OEM computer, so I don't know the specs for sure. How could I look them up for you?

He probably didnt have all the Windows updates.

I tried disconnecting the LAN cable and starting the computer up, but that didn't work.

What do I do now? Some of the files on that computer are very important. How can I prevent this from happeneing again, IF I'm able to fix it.

 

[stickybytes]

Gosh this sounds like an exact problem i had. I was in your exact situation a few years ago. Everything was working fine and then one morning, i tried booting up the system and it kept restarting. Exactly as you said, the blue desktop would show for about 2 seconds and then it would restart and go right back to the bios flash screen and do the same thing over and over again. I tried everything i could, (f8 safe mode, last known good configuration, reset bios settings, etc) but nothing worked. I even called up tech support and they suggested the best option was to reformat my computer. He told me to bring the hard drive to any local computer shop and tell them to make a backup image of all the data on my hd onto a dvd that way all my data was saved and then format the computer. I was very hesitant but finally i decided what the heck, i had no important information on my comp anyway so i just formatted the whole damn thing. After that, i reinstalled winxp and everything worked fine.

So i'd suggest that if all else fails, formatting could be your last resort.

 

[Carbonadium4]

Either that or get a cheap 10 gig hdd, install windows on that, put this drive as slave, copy all the important stuff out and reformat that drive... hard to tell..

 

[GeMan]

Not sure if this will help, but my dads computer used to do that. The problem he had was a shorted wire for the reset button the computer. His was more intermittent then yours, but you might want to check it out.. Good Luck!

 

[oog]

does the blue screen say REGISTRY_ERROR? a friend of mine had that problem on monday, and i found a KB article that talked about how to restore a working copy of the registry when you can't boot into windows. if that's what your bluescreen says, let me know and i'll dig up the article that i bookmarked on my other computer.

 

[pirred908]

Originally posted by: oog
does the blue screen say REGISTRY_ERROR? a friend of mine had that problem on monday, and i found a KB article that talked about how to restore a working copy of the registry when you can't boot into windows. if that's what your bluescreen says, let me know and i'll dig up the article that i bookmarked on my other computer.

no, theres no error pop up. So I guess my only real option is to format it?

 

[trexpesto]

Make sure the connections are good.
Is it set to boot from CD-ROM only in the bios, yet you don't have the CD in there? Probably not, unless there was a bios change...
You could try the windows repair from cd disk.
If you have another power supply that is worth checking.
Even if you can't get it to boot, there are ways of extracting the info from the disk.

 

[Mo0o]

Hmm i would slave the HD to another computer, get the critical data out, then reformat the drive

 

[robphelan]

Originally posted by: Mo0o
Hmm i would slave the HD to another computer, get the critical data out, then reformat the drive

yep, especially since you said he had important files on it. This isn't a big deal to do. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water - I've always wanted to use that expression but never had the chance. Thanks AT!

 

[pirred908]

Okay thanks guys. I'll set the HDD as a slave in his daughters DELL. Thanks again.

 

[wilsonta]

Pirred908-

Did reformatting work to solve this problem? And were you able to save information from the computer?

 

[pirred908]

I didnt try to save the information. I just formatted it with Windows Me.