Kris said:
Hello,
I have Win xp pro installed and it has been functioning, well the way
windows does with no major problems and today it began an endless cycle of
restarting. It gets to the point where windows should boot then it powers
down. I have done a complete system check and disconnected all of the
devices, I ran diagnostics on all drives and everything checks out.
Finally
I did a windows repair install, still the same cycle of power down right
when windows begins to boot and restart. Can anybody give me any
suggestions
on what to do now?
Will assume that you can't boot to Safe Mode and that Last Known Good
doesn't help. This kind of behaviour can indicate hardware failure,
sometimes failed memory, particularly if it just shuts down and doesn't
attempt to restart.
Do you have a spare empty drive? If so, take out your primary drive,
install the spare and do a "quick" install of XP to that drive. Don't
bother with apps or updates or any drivers; they don't matter for this. You
just need to know if it starts.
This will tell you if the problem is hardware-related, other than that hard
disk or Windows install. And that can be really, really helpful
information.
Unfortunately, if the problem persists with the spare drive, the only way to
get a lot further on diagnosis is to replace parts, and that can get
expensive. The problem can be the memory, several motherboard components,
the processor, or the power supply.
If the problem goes away with the spare drive, you can be pretty confident
that those components are OK, and that it's some sort of software conflict
or issue. At this point, examine the value of your time. It may be better
used in doing a clean install to a new drive so that you have access to all
your old data for restoration. Using a new drive will also remove the
possibility that the current drive itself is the problem.
One quick thing that I have found that can sometimes help is to remove the
swap and hibernation files. You have to do this with the drive attached to
another system (or while it's booted from the spare drive).
Finally, if the problem is with the registry, you could use the process
detailed at the link below to get a generic registry that would allow the
system to boot. However, if the system restore points are damaged or if
that's off, you're stuck with having to reinstall all software and
reconfigure everything anyway. You could do most of this at the time you
have the system booted with the spare drive.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545
HTH
-pk
