keeps restarting, safe mode doesn't help

I know there are many similair posts, but I can't seem to find one that is close enough. I've got a toshiba qosmio with XP media center. It boots up, goes to a desktop without any icons and will then restart repeatedly on its own. Safe mode won't even take it to the desktop without it restarting first. Any help would be great. Thanks.

 

Do you have the Windows install CD?
1) If you do, put it in. When it says "Press __ to open Setup" or something similar, press the key it tells you to. Where it says Boot Order, make sure the CD rom is before the hard drive.
2) Reboot
3) It will say "Press any key to boot to cd..." (press any key)
4) Press R when it says "Press f8 to install, press r for recovery console"
5) Select your windows install by pressing 1, then enter
6) Type Administrator for the username, press enter
7) Leave password blank, press enter
8) type in fixboot and press enter. select y or yes if you get any prompts
9) when fixboot is done running, type in fixmbr. select y or yes if you get any prompts
10) when fixmbr is done running, type in chkdsk. select y or yes if you get any prompts
11) reboot and see what happens

 

thanks for the quick response! i found the recovery cds, but I can't get it to boot from the cd. I pressed F8 to get into the setup menu, but I don't see anything regarding boot order. any ideas?

 

ok i figured out how to boot from the cd, and now it's saying that everything is going to be deleted. i figured this would happen, do you know if there is a way to back all this stuff up without having to deal with the restarting issue?

 

F2 or F12 should be what you need to get to boot options (forget which). if it doesn't tell you on your initial screen (with your vendor's name, bios & processor info), try one, then the other to get where you need to be to have "boot from drive" available.

what i did was purchase a 500gb usb external drive (about $50 from Dell, my vendor) and saved EVERYTHING before i reformatted and did a clean reinstall of Windows. i saved individual folders/files/installers in addition to the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard (which ended up not working) so i feel lucky i didn't only use the Wizard. this will only work if you can get to your desktop.

you can probably find a smaller usb external drive, if you don't want/need one that big.

also, have you tried "last known good configuration that worked?" may work, and you may have to do it several times.

 

Windows Advanced Options Menu
Getting into Windows Safe Mode
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/chsafe.htm

Step 1
Choose "Last known good configuration that worked", and press the Enter key. The computer will attempt to load Windows.
If Windows does not start, try the same thing again .... and continue trying for 10 times, before you rule that option out as a means of getting your OS up and running again, normally.
Why 10 times? Based on past experience, a successful result is sometimes achieved after several consecutive failed attempts.

Step 2
Choose "Disable automatic restart on system failure" and press the Enter key.
Your system will attempt to restart normally, but when it crashes, it will not re-start. Instead, you will see a BSOD with error message.
Record the error message in full detail, and post in this thread.

 

You can boot off a Linux Live CD and save your data to an external hard drive. Here is a Linux distro that I have used and is very simple to understand. LINUX MINT. Plug the hard drive in before you reboot with the CD and it will be detected.
Make sure you follow AustrAlien advice on disabling auto restart and posting the error message. The problem may be resolved without you resorting to a restore.

 

NO!
If it warned that things would be deleted, you did it wrong.
Go to Recovery Console, NOT install!

 

@ zDawg32
These are recovery CDs: The XP Recovery Console is probably NOT available using these CDs!
The use of fixboot and fixmbr will not resolve this issue either.

 

my computer is doing the same, except i get win32k.sys BSOD's, and stop errors, cannot get into safe mode without it restarting, again and again, cannot get into my desktop without the BSOD, again and again. tried "last known good config." again and again. when it 1st started randomly restarting it went into a plain background desktop to, but only once before it started rebooting, again and again.


i wish i could help you, do you get any BSOD's? or any blue screens with any specific errors? maybe by some grace of computer gods i can figure out my problem by someone fixing yours.


also, i have reformatted, and installed a new hard drive and tried to reinstall windows, but during reinstall it randomly rebooted, again and again. i bought new mobo. new ram same thing... it seems it will never end.

 

sawedoff, please don't insert your problems into someone else's thread.
Start a new thread if you need help.
All answers in this thread will be directed to the original poster - FFTodd.

 

i called toshiba support and they told me it sounds like it has to go with the explorer.exe file becoming corrupt. the solution for this they said was to reinstall windows, but that it would erase my hard drive info unfortunately. so i went out and bought a HDD enclosure and removed the drive and was able to get all the files i wanted off and backed up onto a dvd. since then, windows has been reinstalled and it seems to be working just as it should. the only problem now is that when i load the backup dvd it's saying that "e:\ is not accesible. Incorrect function." not sure why....