Vista continually reboots prior to the welcome screen appearing

[Cisco]

Whenever I try to boot my computer now, a blue screen appears right
before the welcome screen. At this point my PC reboots and so the
loop continues. All I have been able to get from the blue screen is
"Fatal Error" and "computer has been shut down," as it appears for
less than a second.

I have tried using the Windows Vista repair on the DVD, including the
following commands under Windows RE Command Prompt:
bootsec /fixmbr
bootsec /fixboot
bootsec /rebuildbcd
Unfortunately the problem still exists. No new hardware has been
added and after testing there don't seem to be any faults with the
hard drive. I am about to test the memory now.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cisco
--
Windows Vista Ultimate
Dell Dimension 4600
Pentium 4 3.2GHz Processor
1GB RAM
160GB and 500GB SATA Hard Drives

 

[Cisco]

The following information was provided after the failed repair
attempt:

Problem Signature

Problem Event Name: StartupRepair V2

Problem Signature 1: External Media
Problem Signature 2: 6.0.6000.16386.6.0.6000.16386
Problem Signature 3: 0
Problem Signature 4: 65537
Problem Signature 5: Unknown
Problem Signature 6: NoOSInstalled
Problem Signature 7: 0
Problem Signature 8: 1
Problem Signature 9: FixPartitionTable
Problem Signature 10: 1168

OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

 

[Charlie Tame]

Whenever I try to boot my computer now, a blue screen appears right
before the welcome screen. At this point my PC reboots and so the
loop continues. All I have been able to get from the blue screen is
"Fatal Error" and "computer has been shut down," as it appears for
less than a second.

I have tried using the Windows Vista repair on the DVD, including the
following commands under Windows RE Command Prompt:
bootsec /fixmbr
bootsec /fixboot
bootsec /rebuildbcd
Unfortunately the problem still exists. No new hardware has been
added and after testing there don't seem to be any faults with the
hard drive. I am about to test the memory now.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cisco
--
Windows Vista Ultimate
Dell Dimension 4600
Pentium 4 3.2GHz Processor
1GB RAM
160GB and 500GB SATA Hard Drives

Not sure what that means because a hardware fault can give numerous
deceptive messages.

I assume this just started to happen and previously the machine was okay.

Could be - the CPU fan has failed and the CPU is reaching critical temp
as the load increases. Memory has gone bad so as soon as the system
tries to use it it falls over. A driver for the Motherboard has been
damaged, or just possibly a video card driver. Power supply has gone
bad. Motherboard capacitors fail sometimes, that would probably look
like it's been hot and / or swelled up or even burst.

If you are taking the case off check the fans first and memory...
easiest. Get a memory test program, the BIOS memory things is not really
good enough. If the 1G is in the form of 2 X 512 you could try them one
at a time, maybe only one is bad and that would be a clue. If so get 2
1GB sticks at the same time, same spec, it will go better with 2G
anyway. You can try unplugging drives and things leaving only the HD
with the OS on it but that won't reduce the power much so not a good
check on the power supply really. Won't hurt to re-seat the connectors
though, but it goes without saying be careful with connectors so no pins
get bent.

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

Whenever I try to boot my computer now, a blue screen appears right
before the welcome screen. At this point my PC reboots and so the
loop continues. All I have been able to get from the blue screen is
"Fatal Error" and "computer has been shut down," as it appears for
less than a second.

I have tried using the Windows Vista repair on the DVD, including the
following commands under Windows RE Command Prompt:
bootsec /fixmbr
bootsec /fixboot
bootsec /rebuildbcd
Unfortunately the problem still exists. No new hardware has been
added and after testing there don't seem to be any faults with the
hard drive. I am about to test the memory now.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

What about Safe Mode?

ss.

 

[Paul Randall]

Seems to me that a less disruptive way to verify you don't have these types
of hardware problems would be to boot from a few types of disks like BartPE
and run diagnostics. If you don't get similar failures, your memory & power
supply are probably OK. My Vista Compaq allows me to create a PC Doctor
bootable CD which tests most of my hardware.

-Paul Randall