XP randomly restarts on me

[Paul]

I'm experiencing these unexplained crashes in XP, not the
kind of crash where you get to close the frozen program
and keep working...but the kind of crash in which I'm
minding my own business and the machine just randomly
restarts. It's only happened a handful of times, but so
far the trend seems to be that it occurs while opening a
file (e.g. Word doc) or copying/moving files between my HD
and external backup drive.

Then I get the blue screen during bootup, asking me to
check the file system on my C drive for errors. For
instance, when it happened earlier today, I got this
prompt:

For the file "C:/.../Microsoft Office/Recent/<<Word file I
was using when it crashed>>.LNK", first allocation unit is
not valid--the entry will be truncated. I suppose this
could just be an aftereffect of the crash...

I just formatted my hard drive two days ago, so it's not
like there should be a ton of baggage in the file system
which would make the machine unstable (or should it?).

Any insight?
Thanks!
Paul

 

[Guest]

I had a similar problem. Turns out that I the Blaster
virus. I got rid of the virus and everything started
working OK.

Bruce

 

[dglock]

this could be either virus related or hardware.
is this a desktop or laptop?
this type of behavior is many time caused by excess heat.
are all your fans running?
a faulty ram module will also cause the computer to
reboot.
might also be the drivers for you graphics card are not
right or corrupt.
you said you just formated,did you install the
motherboard drivers from the cd?
some times the generic drivers that windows uses are not
the best for that brand of hardware.
don

 

[Travis King]

Is your computer new? If it has been doing this since day one, a setting
may not be correct. I agree with what the other people have said so far...
it could be the memory, a driver, etc.
I wouldn't recommend trying this, but if you feel like trying this, go
ahead... This is more for computer experts then typical people. You may
want to try contacting your system's manufacturer first if you have one.
If your computer is new, try going into your computer's BIOS. Make sure
that the VCORE or voltage isn't too high... It's kind of hard to tell you
where it should be because I have no clue what kind or processor your system
has. Also while you're in the BIOS, make sure that the Frequency or FSB
isn't too high. Same goes with the multiplier. The FSB (frequency) should
be half of what it really is in the BIOS. For example, if you have a 333MHz
FSB CPU, the Frequency in the BIOS should report 166MHz. Then the
multiplier should be multiplied times the FSB to get your processor's speed.
If the speed is above your processor's actual speed, this could cause random
reboots.
Formula: Multiplier x Frequency = Processor speed
Your motherboard may not have these settings in the BIOS however. They
could be jumpers on the motherboard if they aren't in the BIOS. Warning:
Incorrect settings could cause damage to your system.