Automatic restart on system failure not working

[Joonas L.]

I am using Windows XP Professional, SP2, 32-bit version with all the updates
from Automatic Windows Updates service.

The problem I am having is that my computer will not reboot after Windows
encounters a system failure (also known as the Blue screen of death). This
feature did work when I initially installed Windows on this computer, but as
I wanted to find out the cause of the failures, I disabled it from System
properties.

Now I need to use my computer more and more remotely, so it is critical that
it stays operational. Some times it has happened that a system failure
happened and I was not able to connect. When I eventually get back with
physical access to the computer I can see that it has a blue screen with
error details, even though I have already swithced the option to restart on
failure back to enabled state.

I have also checked using Registry Editor that the value AutoReboot is 1.
For me it appears that all the settings are correct but Windows will stop at
the system failure, not restart like it should do.

 

[The Omen]

I am using Windows XP Professional, SP2, 32-bit version with all the updates
from Automatic Windows Updates service.

The problem I am having is that my computer will not reboot after Windows
encounters a system failure (also known as the Blue screen of death). This
feature did work when I initially installed Windows on this computer, but as
I wanted to find out the cause of the failures, I disabled it from System
properties.

Now I need to use my computer more and more remotely, so it is critical that
it stays operational. Some times it has happened that a system failure
happened and I was not able to connect. When I eventually get back with
physical access to the computer I can see that it has a blue screen with
error details, even though I have already swithced the option to restart on
failure back to enabled state.

I have also checked using Registry Editor that the value AutoReboot is 1.
For me it appears that all the settings are correct but Windows will stop at
the system failure, not restart like it should do.

I had a similar problem. Used XP Smoker Pro. You unfortunately have to
purchase it but it was worth it. You can try it with the trial version and
see if it works.
http://www.xp-smoker.com/

 

[Joonas L.]

Thank you for the reply, The Omen.

Unfortunately XP Smoker Pro trial version did not help with this cause. I
tested it using the CrashOnCtrlScroll trick, Windows went into blue screen
but did not automatically restart.

Seeing as there is an option to disable autoreboot in start up menu (F8),
this made me think that maybe the fact that Windows is installed on different
hard drive than where the boot loader is has something to do with this issue.

The first hard drive which used to have Windows XP Home version is used to
boot up, but it start the Windows XP Pro from the second hard drive. This is
because when I installed XP Pro on the second hard drive, it did not make
itself bootable but only edited the boot list of the first hard drive adding
itself to the boot menu.

If I try to boot from the 2nd hard drive directly, I get message saying
NTLDR is missing. If there is a way I could add the boot informaton to this
hard drive too, I could try booting directly from this and see if it has any
difference. I suppose Recovery Console could have something that might get
this done, but I am not sure of the commands.

 

[Gerry]

Joonas


What have you done to resolve the problem causing the machine to
automatically restart. Why not post a complete copy of the Stop Error
Report


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Joonas L.]

Gerry,

The STOP error is caused by an old Kerio Personal Firewall that is not fully
compatible with Windows XP. I have my own personal reasons for keeping this
program even if it does crash the computer sometimes (few times a month).
However, this is a bit irrelevant since the problem in hand is that XP does
not restart the computer on these errors even though I have set the option
for it to do so.

And it is not the firewall error, any blue screen stop will just stop, not
followed by a restart. The problem is that despite setting Windows to
automatically restart on system failure, it does not do so. And this is what
I would like to get fixed. Since this feature has worked a year ago on this
same computer, before reinstalling Windows a couple of months ago, I am
predicting this is some very bizarre setting inside Windows that is not
visible anywhere but is preventing this option from working correctly.

Hardware wise the changes that I have made since it did work are that I have
changed one hard drive, added one hard drive, added another 1 GB of memory
(now total 2 GB, type DDR2 PC-6400) and Ageia PhysX card.

Since I have had automatic restart disabled for most time I do not know when
it exactly stopped working, but I would like to enable it now.