Computer Startup Problems

[Deana]

Im not sure that i am in the right place for this but
hopefully someone can help me before I go crazy!!

When I turn on my computer my screen shows the Windows XP
screen then after a few moments it acts like its trying
to go to my log in screen but the screen stays black and
the hour glass shows up and then my computer just shuts
down and restarts and it does that over and over and over
not allowing me to do anything at all. I tried to start
it in safe mode and still does the same thing. I cant
even get into my darn computer to see whats wrong. Its
been like this for 2 weeks and the day this happened I
ran all my virus stuff and adaware and so on and it
showed all was good. Can anyone help me...PLEASE! Any
advise would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Im not sure that i am in the right place for this but
hopefully someone can help me before I go crazy!!

When I turn on my computer my screen shows the Windows XP
screen then after a few moments it acts like its trying
to go to my log in screen but the screen stays black and
the hour glass shows up and then my computer just shuts
down and restarts and it does that over and over and over
not allowing me to do anything at all. I tried to start
it in safe mode and still does the same thing. I cant
even get into my darn computer to see whats wrong. Its
been like this for 2 weeks and the day this happened I
ran all my virus stuff and adaware and so on and it
showed all was good. Can anyone help me...PLEASE! Any
advise would be greatly appreciated.

Press F8 during the early boot phase, then select
"Last known good configuration" or "Safe Mode".

 

[Dave]

I have the same problem as Deana. If I read Deana's post
correctly she could not start in safe mode which is also
the case with mine. I have tried everything I know, even
put in a new hard drive and tried a different graphics
card but still have the problem. Configuration has not
changed.

Has anyone had a similiar problem and was able to correct
it.

Thanks,
Dave

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

These issues are usually caused
a) by some hardware installation
b) by some software installation
c) by some malicious action
d) by some internal corruption

Without knowing the history of the machines it is
impossible to guess which of the four might be
responsible. If Safe Mode or Last Known
Configuration do not resolve the problem then
the following approach often will:
a) Remove the new hardware.
b) Remove or disable the new software or driver.
c) Scan the disk while it runs as a slave disk on some
other WinXP PC.
d) Reboot the PC with the WinXP CD, then select
the Repair option.

 

[Dave]

Thanks for your reply. Sorry for not providing the
background of the machine.

It belongs to a friend and I was trying to help out. They
said it just started to reboot in enless circle for no
apparent reason. No changes were made to the unit before
this happened.


I verified the problem. (Just in case I did not define
the problem I will summarize here. When booting the unit
it goes through POST and begins to load the O/S and then
shuts down and starts to reboot. When loaded with WinXP
the XP window comes on the screen and appears it is going
to load and after about 3 or 4 seconds it shuts down.)
I couldn't find an obvious reason for the problem so I
reformatted the hard drive and reloaded Win 98 which is
the O/S being used before. The problem persisted. I
installed another hard drive that was loaded with Win98
and was able to boot up the machine. I noted the
resolution was 640x480 and color choices were 8 and 16
colors only. This lead me to believe their might be a
graphics board problem. So I changed graphics board from
AGP board in the machine to a PCI board I had as a spare.
The problem persisted.

I did note some problems with recognition of the HD when
I was reformating. I also noticed that a time of two when
looking at the BIOS the clock time had changed so I
changed the BIOS Battery.

The problem persisted. I was leaning toward the HD having
a problem by this time.

I reformatted HD and loaded WinXP thinking it has better
dianostics. Problem still persisted. I even
tried "Recovery Console" but could not find any command
to help trouble shoot this problem. By the way all HD
tests and scans did not indicate any problem with HD.

I purchased a new HD and formated and loaded WinXP to no
avail. Tried Win98 as well to no avail.

So I am at an impasse. Do you think a hardware problem is
idicated maybe with the mother board?

Thanks for any insight you might have,
Dave

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Are you saying that you loaded Windows 98 onto a blank
hard disk, and that the installation kept cycling?

If so then the machine has a serious hardware problem,
because it appears to be unable to run either Win98 nor
WinXP (which are two radically different OSs).

The problem could be caused by a bad power supply,
a faulty motherboard or flawed memory chips. A repair
shop would replace one item at a time until the problem
was resolved.

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

Im not sure that i am in the right place for this but
hopefully someone can help me before I go crazy!!

When I turn on my computer my screen shows the Windows XP
screen then after a few moments it acts like its trying
to go to my log in screen but the screen stays black and
the hour glass shows up and then my computer just shuts
down and restarts and it does that over and over and over
not allowing me to do anything at all. I tried to start
it in safe mode and still does the same thing. I cant
even get into my darn computer to see whats wrong. Its
been like this for 2 weeks and the day this happened I
ran all my virus stuff and adaware and so on and it
showed all was good. Can anyone help me...PLEASE! Any
advise would be greatly appreciated.

Deana,

there is one other possibility to explain this phenomenon. If
your computer has automatic updates activated and runs on an
Athlon 64 processor or one of the other affected processors
mentioned in http://www.michna.com/kb/WxSP2.htm, it could have
downloaded and installed Service Pack 2, which brings the
problem out in the open.

But you should still be able to boot into safe mode by pressing
F8 at the end of the BIOS boot process and the beginning of
Windows XP booting from the hard disk.

Hans-Georg