XP Home keeps rebooting...

[venkatvm]

Hi..

I was just browsing on my laptop compaq 2580 US, and just stepped away
for about 15 min. It suddenly started rebooting and from then on has
been on an infinite loop of rebooting. I've tried going into safe mode
but even then it just reboots. (i.e. doesn't even boot in safe mode).
All I had on at that time was Mozilla Firefox browser. There are no
viruses as far as I know. It has never happened like this before.

Could any one help finding out what's the problem? I'm at my wits end.
I can't find any apparent reason for this happening? All it does is
start AVG Scan at 8pm every day.


Thanks very much in advance.

Cheers,

 

[Glen]

Boot from the CD and try system restore. At the command prompt type:

"c:\windows\system32\restore\rstrui.exe" assuming C: is the system drive.

If you really were away from the computer when it started rebooting there
are few things that could cause the problem, virus\malware, corrupt
application, hardware problem. Once you get the computer up and running yopu
can track down the cause. If system restore wont fix it look for a hardware
fault.

 

[venkatvm]

Hi Glen.. Thanks very much for the response.

Unfortunately, I don't have a bootable CD (I know, that's stupid of me
). This actually caught me completely unawares. And, I don't have
data backup too. As far as I know my computer doesn't have virus or
malware since I think I've protected my laptop reasonably well, with
pop-up blocker, AVG anti-virus etc. Also, I work from a user account
(admin disabled). The only program that was running at the time of
crash was the AVG scanner (runs every night at 8pm).

The laptop came with a System Restore CD (actually a total of 3 CDs,
numbered 1 thru 3) which I tried booting from. But it says it will
reformat by hard disk. Looks like I'll lose my data completely and the
OS will be reinstalled. I'm trying to keep that as the last resort, if
nothing else works.

Thanks for your help, anyway. Let me know if you think of anything
else.
Cheers,
Venk.

 

[Glen]

Download the boot disc set from microsoft and burn the 4 or 6 floppies and
that will give you the recovery console. You can try system restore from
there.

 

[venkatvm]

Hi.. thanks for your response again. I used the XP installation CD and
used Repair option to get into C prompt. But I don't see a file called
rstrui.exe in the path u have mentioned. The only exe file in that path
is rsdiag.exe.

Can I try reinstalling the OS without losing data?

 

[venkatvm]

i reinstalled OS. I put in the installation CD, chose the (R)epair
option **that comes the second time** (the first time chose new
install). It automatically installed without reformatting hard drive.
And the problem seems all right now. Barring a few minor glitches in
application starts, it looks like the laptop has recovered well. And, I
didn't lose any data too. However this is the thing.. I never keep any
personal data on "My Documents" and other windows-related automatic
folders. I keep them under a separate folder under c:\. That may have
helped me, b'coz the reinstallation really updated "My Documents",
"Documents and Settings" and other similar windows standard folders.

Ultimately, it irks me that I never did learn what really happened....

Cheers,
Venk.