XP bluescreen and reboots on any kind of boot up

[Liam]

I'm working on a friend's Windows XP (SP2).
It loads the splash screen and suddenly reboots with no explanation.
I try in Safe Mode, and I get the long list of drivers it loads, it
pauses, then for less than a second I see a blue screen with writing,
and once I think I saw a line:
"unable to load video driver"
and then it reboots. I can't get it to stop on that screen even with
the Pause key.

I replaced the AGP video card with a PCI, but it does the same thing.
I set the BIOS to failsafe defaults...same thing.
I even tried to boot from CD with a Knoppix Linux disk, and even with
THAT it halts the bootup and reboots.

Any ideas what's going on?
(I'm guessing with that last clue, it's not the OS and likely
hardware--although, I replaced the video card....)

Thanks for any suggestions.
-Liam

 

[Gerry]

Liam

Please post an exact copy of the Stop Error Report!

Disable automatic restart on system failure. This should help by
allowing time to write down the STOP code properly. Right click on
the My Computer icon on the Desktop and select Properties, Advanced,
Start-Up and Recovery, System Failure and uncheck box before
Automatically Restart.

Do not re-enable automatic restart on system failure until you have
resolved the problem. Check for variants of the Stop Error message.

An alternative is to keep pressing the F8 key during StartUp and select
option - Disable automatic restart on system failure.

--



Hope this helps.

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

 

[Liam]

Well, that would be great advice, except for, as I said, it crashes
during the boot up at the splash screen before the desktop is ever
loaded.

In the F8 menu, there IS a disable reboot on fail, which I tried.
Unfortunately, when it halts it shuts down instead of rebooting. Most
of the time without even blinking that blue screen that I get a
glimpse of occasionally.
I also tried Safe Mode/Command Prompt hoping I can find a text log
file--but it crashes before the OS loads with that as well.

 

[C J.]

I'm working on a friend's Windows XP (SP2).
It loads the splash screen and suddenly reboots with no explanation.
I try in Safe Mode, and I get the long list of drivers it loads, it
pauses, then for less than a second I see a blue screen with writing,
and once I think I saw a line:
"unable to load video driver"
and then it reboots. I can't get it to stop on that screen even with
the Pause key.

I replaced the AGP video card with a PCI, but it does the same thing.
I set the BIOS to failsafe defaults...same thing.
I even tried to boot from CD with a Knoppix Linux disk, and even with
THAT it halts the bootup and reboots.

Any ideas what's going on?
(I'm guessing with that last clue, it's not the OS and likely
hardware--although, I replaced the video card....)

Thanks for any suggestions.
-Liam

Try selecting for XP to start using VGA mode in the Safe mode options menu.

 

[Liam]

Try selecting for XP to start using VGA mode in the Safe mode options menu.

Thanks for the reply!
But here's a new, odd development:
When I opened the box to switch video cards as a troubleshooting
method, I double-checked all the power and data cables. All were good.
Trying anything I could think of, at one point I completely
disconnected the HD and tried to boot up from a Knoppix CD again--
worked!
So I plugged the SATA HD back in, but to the other SATA controller
port--and it boots up fine now!
I don't understand how this could have affected the PC's ability to
boot up with a CD before, or why the blue screen message I see in a
split second has to do with loading video drivers.
Odd.
Well, thanks for the replies--I guess it's OK now, although, I wonder
if this is indicative of a greater, looming problem....

 

[C J.]

As an afterthought.. are you sure the Video card is in the correct PCI slot
??