XP blue screen & continuous reboot

Hello - I have searched for this topic with no results. Here's my question. When XP is set to automatically reboot on system failure, makes it thru POST, starts to boot (but will not successfully boot into safe mode, last known good etc) presents a quick unreadable blue screen then reboots again, is there a way to disable the auto reboot to stop this cycle? I'm aware of how to do it when windows boots properly, but what to do when it's stuck in this vicious useless loop? Thanks in advance for your input

Scott

 

Read this
Try to read the error number if it's not 0x0000007E, even though it might be difficult. Since there's no way to disable this without getting in windows.

 

Sounds like it could be a hardware problem.
Could you give a brief description of what got you to this point?

You could do restore system repair by putting in your XP CD...
Chose "Install XP" at first post...
Then "Repair" on second post.
This just reinstalls system files and drivers without erasing the HD.
That usually at least gets you into the system so you can check devices... do a virus scan... etc.

 

In this instance I don't remember the stop error code, but it was a disk read error (bad sectors on the hard drive). I do some PC repair on the side and usually I can figure out the problem...but sometimes I just wonder if there's an easier way? I have in the past also resorted to taking a snapshot of the screen with my digital camera as the blue screen flashes then looking at the photo to see what the stop error is. I was just hoping someone knew of a way to stop the auto reboot when you can't access windows?

 

If you have SP 2 installed, you can tap F8 while the computer starts up to get to the advanced options menu, and then choose "disable automatic restart on system failure", which should allow the bluescreen to stay up long enough to read it. Won't be there if SP 2 isn't installed though.