continual reboot problems

My pc is in a continual reboot loop. I have windows xp home edition. Is there a program I can download to make a rebootable cd that will fix this problem? I was told to just reformat my hard drive but I don't want to lose all of my files.
Thanks
mjt

 

how far does it get before it reboots?

 

This might help

http://www.d-a-l.com/xpreboots.php

 

It will briefly show the windows xp page and then it reboots

 

mjt;

I hope u do not have what was in a laptop. The bottom line was a virus that

put the machine in reboot and the problem was it re assigned the drive 0,1 to

0,0. It had home xp sp1 and the story from the tech support was formatt

and or fdisk it and loose the info on the drive. I ended up buying software

to recover the drive and found the virus after the recovery.

With luck some on the site here has some other solution for u.

asturnacle

 

With luck some on the site here has some other solution for u.

should read

With luck Someone on the site here has some other solution for u.

typo
asturnacle

 

asturnacle, says the problem maybe a virus which re
assigned the drive 0,1 to 0,0 if that is the case how do I fix it or what software can I get to fix it?

 

Have you checked bios settings (if available) not to halt/reboot on all errors?

 

Bios settings won't do that. It's Windows that decides to do that, not BIOS.

I'm surprised that you've not been given the option to boot into Safe Mode.

Try this article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304449/en-us

You should be able to use this to restore your PC to a previous state.

 

If the mobo bios already has it, it's deactivated by default, and indeed it is also a Windows setting.

 

Eh?

The bios setting to "Halt on Error" is referring to errors in POST, (Power on Self Test). Once you've booted into Windows that setting doesn't apply, because POST has been completed. And that Halt will not reboot the computer, but stop the boot process saying "Keyboard error - press any key to continue" or something

However, once Windows has taken over - there is a setting that will reboot the PC (using an ACPI call to the motherboard) to reset the system when a STOP exception occurs. This is feature is for productivity, but unfortunately makes troubleshooting rather difficult.

 

I looked it up and your right goldfish, thanks for the education and the breach in my selfconfidence...

Nelis out

 

It will not boot in Safe Mode. I am able to do a scan in which it will show me the files, however they are listed as links so it won't let me copy them. My computer has 2 partitions (one says nothing is allocated to it) is there a way to swith partitions long enough to at least copy all of my files?

 

If the partition is being recognised and windows is trying to load but has become too corrupt the registry can be restored by following this article,dont be afraid it isnt as complex as it looksif you get stuck post back

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307545

 

mjt;

Wondering if u have been able to try what Ricky suggested?

in the case I refered too the machine would get to the window splash screen

and re boot regardlesss of the mode, the recovery I used was costly, and

your trouble here sounds a bit different, in that u can see links to various

files, and I was not able to see the drive with out the use of cd bootable

software.

pse advise
asturnacle

 

I could not get to the prompt to do this. So I gave up and tried to erase the hard drive.
This is the message I received after trying to erase my hard drive. Stop: c0000218 {RegistryFile Failure}
The Registry cannot load the hive (file):
or its log or alternate.
It is corrupt, absent or not writable.
Begining dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete.
Contact your system administrator or technical suport group for further assistnce. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

 

I had a problem with continual reboots a while back. Sometimes it would eventually boot into Windows XP but the graphics were all weird colours. Mostly it would fail to boot with a message something like “Ntfs.sys file missing or corrupt”. When I booted from the XP Recovery CD I kept getting errors so could not start the recovery console or do a reinstall. The PC was still under warranty so an engineer came out. He said it was either RAM memory or HD failure. He replaced the RAM and was about to replace the HD but said he had to take away my old HD under the warranty terms. Since I did not want to lose any chance of recovering my files I declined this. The new RAM did not cure the problem so I bought a new HD and reinstalled Windows XP. From there I could grab all my files off the old HD. Then I did a diagnostics test on the old HD with a Maxtor utility. Guess what? It passed all tests including a full low level format with no errors! I have been using it ever since with no problems.

Anyway back to your problem. Assuming you do not have a hard drive failure and you want to save your files without buying a new HD you could try making a compressed image of your main partition and copying it onto the spare partition if it is big enough. After that I suggest reformatting your original Windows partition using a DOS based utility. Once you have reinstalled XP you can then access the compressed image and extract any files you need.

For partition work such as imaging I have used BootIt Next Generation which runs in DOS, which you can use on a 30 day free trial. I know other utilities are available but I have no experience of them so can't advise on how good they are.

I assume you have access to another PC to download the required programs.

For BootIt NG go to
http://www.majorgeeks.com/BootIt_Next_Generation_d646.html

After downloading the zip file extract all files.
Find the 'BOOTITNG' shortcut file and double click to run.
Follow instructions to create the boot floppy/CD.
Put this boot floppy/CD in your problem PC and reboot.
At the first screen select 'Cancel' i.e. don't install the program. Then click 'OK' which runs the program from the floppy/CD.
Click 'Partition work' and you should see the Hard Drive and how it is partitioned and the file system. It will also list unpartitioned areas of the HD as 'Free space'.
For each partition, Click on 'Properties' then 'Details' to see how much of each partition has been used.
As part of the downloaded zip file you get a PDF manual which explains how to create a compressed image (page 25). I recommend doing a full byte for byte validation check.

It is possible to save the image directly onto CDs but I found I had to go into BIOS setup and play around with the CDRW transfer mode/speed to get it to work.

Note BootIt NG can reformat the problem partition but only as FAT32 (not NTFS). However you can convert from FAT32 to NTFS in XP.

After reinstalling Windows XP you can either restore the compressed image to a new partition or download a small free program called TBIView from www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html which can access the above created image files in an explorer type interface.

If you need any help with any of the above let me know.

 

You could try this, and it should not erase anything you want to keep.

In Bios change it so your cd drive is your first boot device.
pop in windows xp cd
exit
reboot
enter windows setup and choose the repair option.
choose your drive when the prompt asks you
enter admin password if you have one, if not just press enter.
you should have something that says C:\
type help....it should look like c:\help
press enter.
scroll down
there should be one that says FIXBOOT
press enter
you get......C:\
type fixboot soit looks like.....C:\fixboot
press enter
it should tell you something good.
type exit and press enter.
take out cd and see if it boots.
this should not harm your comp if fixboot did not work, it simply writes a new boot sector, does not erase info.

 

I have just recently upgraded my machine, and it now is in a continual reboot loop. I put a new 600W power supply, New AMD Dual Core Socket 939 4600+ chip, new ATI radeon 1600x pro PCI express 16x, Seagate 250gb hard drive, new cd burner, and cd drive, and New ASrock motherboard. It worked few hours before so but DVD burner wouldnt read cd's so installed a new cd drives. After that it wouldnt boot to the hard drive it gets to where you select if you want safe mode, safe mode with network, safe mode with command, Last known safe, or boot normally. After you select one it tries and within half second of seeing the Windows loading page it reboots.

Any ideas?

 

I had reinstalled windows and it worked when i was installing the drivers for the graphic card, the dvd driver didnt work and i had to head to the dr so took a break and got a cd driver from an old cpu that worked fine and put it in and now it just reboots over and over. I have also tried to reinstall after didnt work but it would just get as far as copying files but never boot to the hard drive. I have tried 2 hard drives on from cpu that worked and 2 power supplys again one from another that worked.

 

HELP! HELP!HELP!HELP!
OH! Help!!!!!!!!!

Well let me see. Title tells you the problem, now let me expand.

Without a lot of Soap Box Yelling I'll just say, {and YES I know I should KNOW better but} I didn't.
I was using Partition Magic 7.x that the good ole Geek Squad put on my computer.

I wanted to take my "C" Drive and split it in half, or about in half, so I could have WinXP Pro on one partitiion and programs on another and documents on seperate external drives. I have several drives I use just for projects. So.

I did the partition, using the partition wizard, all went well, I guess maybe not. But It got to the boot without telling me anything was wrong and it said to activate the new partition status hit enter. I did.
While it was doing it's boot thing I went to get a cup of coffee.

When I came back it was still booting. I sat and watched and it continued to boot, it would boot to the VERY first part of the WIN load and then go into the reboot again and again, and again, and....you get the idea.

So I started researching the problem. I have learned a LOT from the research, I have tried SEVERAL DEMO programs, you know the kind that, at least to me, seem to show you what's wrong but you've got to spend 50 to 100 dollars to get the professional version to actually FIX your problem!

Well does ANYBODY know of a program that WON'T cost me 50 or 100 dollars to get my "C" drive back? I really don't care about the data because I've got that in another location, but I would like to get my WIN Pro back because when I switched to Pro, I did an upgrade and of course I DON'T have that backed up anywhere. So If I loose all my date including my OS, I'll just have to go back and install 98SE and then upgrade to win xp pro and down load SP1 and 2 and all that stuff. NOT a HUGE deal but a pain. Pennance I guess for NOT doing a COMPLETE backup prior to running a GEEK Squard supplied Partition Magic.

ANY AND ALL HELP WILL BE REALLY, REALLY, REALLY Appricated. O yea 1 more thing. I don't care if the program is set to only allow me to use it ONCE, as long as I can get my "C" drive back. I don't care if it COSTS me for ONE use. As long as it's not 50 or 100 bucks.

AND another thing, I just remembered. Yes. I've tried ALL the MS recommended fixes none work. Even thorugh the boot sequence is set to CD first it won't even boot to the CD Upgrade. I tried that just to see if it would work.


Thanks.

Gary
as in
Claytor
BTW: If you would be SO kind to e-mail any suggestions to garyclaytor@yahoo.com I would appreciate it. I'm not sure I can find this again.