Help! Computer restarting & other problems.

[Guest]

My computer has been restarting on it's own and afterward the boot record is erased from the harddrive. I shut the computer off for awhile and then it starts up just fine. Sometimes I get a message telling me hal.dll is missing. Can anyone help? (I'm running XP.)

 

[peter]

Try booting up using the XP CD-ROM and choose to repair. Then choose the
Recovery Console Option...
Choose the number corresponding to your XP version and enter your
Administrator Password (then press enter).

After that you'll see a command prompt...enter the following command:

bootcfg /rebuild" command to fix boot.ini.
FIXBOOT will fix the boot sector on the boot drive,
FIXMBR will fix the master boot record if the NT loader
complains of a missing HAL or unmountable boot volume.



After the process is completed enter the command EXIT to quit (and the
system should auto reboot OK from that point onwards...
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peter

My computer has been restarting on it's own and afterward the boot record is

erased from the harddrive. I shut the computer off for awhile and then it starts
up just fine. Sometimes I get a message telling me hal.dll is missing. Can
anyone help? (I'm running XP.)

 

[GTS]

If the boot record was actually erased from the hard drive, it wouldn't boot
up after 'shutting it off for a while'. What makes you think it's erased?
A message re. not found? What does the message say?
Are you clean as far as viruses and spyware?
It sounds like you could possibly have a hardware problem. Have you run a
chkdsk? Overheating is one common cause of spontaneous shutdowns/restarts.
The fact that it restart after being off a while makes that a real
possibility. I would check that the CPU heatsink and fan and power supply
vents are not dust clogged.
--

My computer has been restarting on it's own and afterward the boot record

is erased from the harddrive. I shut the computer off for awhile and then it
starts up just fine. Sometimes I get a message telling me hal.dll is
missing. Can anyone help? (I'm running XP.)