Continuous Reboot

[Bill Martin]

A friend has a machine with XP-Home on it which suddenly fails by repeatedly
rebooting whenever it's turned on. So he called me to look at it. Some
observations:

1) The first thing I see is that it appears to boot properly, then something
executes which kills the system. That something may be me invoking a
program, or it may happen just sitting there. XP flashes up a full page of
error text and then blacks it out in about one second which is really not
very helpful. The first line says something about "If you've seen this
error before"... On down one can catch a quick flash something about
perhaps it's got insufficient disk space. (not the problem -- 20GB disk with
4GB free). Further down is something about maybe newly installed hardware
or device drivers something, something, something. There is nothing newly
installed though. At the bottom there's a line of hex dump that I have no
idea what it is since it disappears so quickly.

2) So my second attempt is to boot the system in Safe mode. That's better,
but still very twitchy and will reboot itself randomly. Nothing untoward is
in the Startup folder. When I try to restore the system to a previous level
the system will fail. "Help & Support" works, but when I click on the
"Restore" link I get an error message: "The procedure entry point to
UuidToStringW could not be located in the dll RPCRT4.dll ".

3) Running Chkdsk will sometimes find a few problems to correct. I suspect
that every time the machine crashes there's a possibility of screwing up the
disk a little bit more and creating new problems for chkdsk to find.

4) Unfortunately, I don't think the machine's XP has been updated in a dog's
age -- if ever. And it can't be done now because every time I try to do so
the machine fails and reboots. Don't even ask about virus software.

Is there anything to do with this short of trying to reload the operating
system from scratch? And can I just reload XP without trashing the rest of
the disk? I rather doubt that any backups have been done on the system, so
I'd rather not trash the data files if possible until XP can be made stable
enough to off load backups of the data files.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

Bill

 

[philo]

A friend has a machine with XP-Home on it which suddenly fails by
repeatedly rebooting whenever it's turned on. So he called me to look at
it. Some observations:

1) The first thing I see is that it appears to boot properly, then
something executes which kills the system. That something may be me
invoking a program, or it may happen just sitting there. XP flashes up a
full page of

<snip>

could be a hardware problem

run a ram test and harddrive diagnostic

 

[Bill Martin]

<snip>

could be a hardware problem

run a ram test and harddrive diagnostic

----------------------------------------------------------------

Do you have a suggestion as to what diagnostics to run? I'm unaware of any
ram test in XP. When I try to do the XP hard drive test it just stops
immediately and says the disk needs to be defragged. But the last thing I
want to do is defrag something that's crashing randomly.

Bill

 

[TaurArian [MS-MVP]]

Black Startup Screen Is Briefly Displayed, Computer Restarts Repeatedly
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314466

Windows XP Logon Screen Does not Appear and the Computer Continuously Restarts
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;310396



--

==================================
TaurArian [MS-MVP] 2005-2007 - Australia
==================================
http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
Need more help? http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=ph;en-us;6527
(Links to web pages and MSKB Articles are posted for the purposes of keeping the
information current)


|A friend has a machine with XP-Home on it which suddenly fails by repeatedly
| rebooting whenever it's turned on. So he called me to look at it. Some
| observations:
|
| 1) The first thing I see is that it appears to boot properly, then something
| executes which kills the system. That something may be me invoking a
| program, or it may happen just sitting there. XP flashes up a full page of
| error text and then blacks it out in about one second which is really not
| very helpful. The first line says something about "If you've seen this
| error before"... On down one can catch a quick flash something about
| perhaps it's got insufficient disk space. (not the problem -- 20GB disk with
| 4GB free). Further down is something about maybe newly installed hardware
| or device drivers something, something, something. There is nothing newly
| installed though. At the bottom there's a line of hex dump that I have no
| idea what it is since it disappears so quickly.
|
| 2) So my second attempt is to boot the system in Safe mode. That's better,
| but still very twitchy and will reboot itself randomly. Nothing untoward is
| in the Startup folder. When I try to restore the system to a previous level
| the system will fail. "Help & Support" works, but when I click on the
| "Restore" link I get an error message: "The procedure entry point to
| UuidToStringW could not be located in the dll RPCRT4.dll ".
|
| 3) Running Chkdsk will sometimes find a few problems to correct. I suspect
| that every time the machine crashes there's a possibility of screwing up the
| disk a little bit more and creating new problems for chkdsk to find.
|
| 4) Unfortunately, I don't think the machine's XP has been updated in a dog's
| age -- if ever. And it can't be done now because every time I try to do so
| the machine fails and reboots. Don't even ask about virus software.
|
| Is there anything to do with this short of trying to reload the operating
| system from scratch? And can I just reload XP without trashing the rest of
| the disk? I rather doubt that any backups have been done on the system, so
| I'd rather not trash the data files if possible until XP can be made stable
| enough to off load backups of the data files.
|
| Any suggestions? Thanks.
|
| Bill
|

 

[Malke]

Do you have a suggestion as to what diagnostics to run? I'm unaware
of any
ram test in XP. When I try to do the XP hard drive test it just stops
immediately and says the disk needs to be defragged. But the last
thing I want to do is defrag something that's crashing randomly.

You don't run hardware diagnostics from within an operating system. Here
are general hardware troubleshooting steps:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Hardware_Tshoot

However, the first thing I'd do is back up the friend's data. It is
completely possible to back up data (as long as the hard drive itself
is viable) without going into Windows. You can either slave the drive
in a working XP box and copy the data off that way or boot the machine
with a rescue system like Knoppix or Bart's PE. Booting the machine
with the rescue system also helps determine if the issues are hardware
or software (Windows) related.

If you don't have the skills to do this, then have your friend take
his/her machine to a professional computer repair shop (not your local
version of BigStoreUSA).

Malke

 

[Bill Martin]

I don't believe these are the problems. The machine does boot properly and
gets past the logon screen, etc. Then after it's booted properly at some
minute or two of "random" time later it reboots.

Thanks.

Bill
------------------------------

Black Startup Screen Is Briefly Displayed, Computer Restarts Repeatedly
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314466

Windows XP Logon Screen Does not Appear and the Computer Continuously
Restarts
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;310396



--

==================================
TaurArian [MS-MVP] 2005-2007 - Australia
==================================
http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
Need more help? http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=ph;en-us;6527
(Links to web pages and MSKB Articles are posted for the purposes of
keeping the
information current)


|A friend has a machine with XP-Home on it which suddenly fails by
repeatedly
| rebooting whenever it's turned on. So he called me to look at it. Some
| observations:
|
| 1) The first thing I see is that it appears to boot properly, then
something
| executes which kills the system. That something may be me invoking a
| program, or it may happen just sitting there. XP flashes up a full page
of
| error text and then blacks it out in about one second which is really
not
| very helpful. The first line says something about "If you've seen this
| error before"... On down one can catch a quick flash something about
| perhaps it's got insufficient disk space. (not the problem -- 20GB disk
with
| 4GB free). Further down is something about maybe newly installed
hardware
| or device drivers something, something, something. There is nothing
newly
| installed though. At the bottom there's a line of hex dump that I have
no
| idea what it is since it disappears so quickly.
|
| 2) So my second attempt is to boot the system in Safe mode. That's
better,
| but still very twitchy and will reboot itself randomly. Nothing
untoward is
| in the Startup folder. When I try to restore the system to a previous
level
| the system will fail. "Help & Support" works, but when I click on the
| "Restore" link I get an error message: "The procedure entry point to
| UuidToStringW could not be located in the dll RPCRT4.dll ".
|
| 3) Running Chkdsk will sometimes find a few problems to correct. I
suspect
| that every time the machine crashes there's a possibility of screwing up
the
| disk a little bit more and creating new problems for chkdsk to find.
|
| 4) Unfortunately, I don't think the machine's XP has been updated in a
dog's
| age -- if ever. And it can't be done now because every time I try to do
so
| the machine fails and reboots. Don't even ask about virus software.
|
| Is there anything to do with this short of trying to reload the
operating
| system from scratch? And can I just reload XP without trashing the rest
of
| the disk? I rather doubt that any backups have been done on the system,
so
| I'd rather not trash the data files if possible until XP can be made
stable
| enough to off load backups of the data files.
|
| Any suggestions? Thanks.
|
| Bill
|

 

[NewScience]

First , back up any user's data (documents, address book, ....)

If this fails, and since if fails after a while in Safe Mode, try booting in
Safe Mode Command Prompt.
See if it fails in Safe Mode Command Prompt.

Then, try a Windows XP Repair.

If all fails, AND you backed up the data, reinstall.

 

[NewScience]

Turn off the automatic reboot on failure under Control Panel | SYstem
|Advanced|Startup and Recovery .... System failure section.

 

[Bill Martin]

You don't run hardware diagnostics from within an operating system. Here
are general hardware troubleshooting steps:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Hardware_Tshoot

However, the first thing I'd do is back up the friend's data. It is
completely possible to back up data (as long as the hard drive itself
is viable) without going into Windows. You can either slave the drive
in a working XP box and copy the data off that way or boot the machine
with a rescue system like Knoppix or Bart's PE. Booting the machine
with the rescue system also helps determine if the issues are hardware
or software (Windows) related.

If you don't have the skills to do this, then have your friend take
his/her machine to a professional computer repair shop (not your local
version of BigStoreUSA).

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

-----------------------------------------------------------

You've put your finger on the problem - or part of it at least. The RAM is
indeed failing. I'll go over again later to check power supply voltages,
reseat the SIMM and such before concluding it's actually the RAM itself, but
that seems to be the problem.

Hopefully, once the RAM is stable then XP will work well enough to restore
itself without a full reload. I guess it depends on what got wiped on the
disk by the RAM crashing XP. We'll see...

Thanks.

Bill