reboot after login (over and over)

Hey everyone.

I am trying to repair a windows xp pc that is unable to boot (won't even boot into safe mode). When the system loads it goes to the login screen and after entering the password it goes briefly (as in a second or 2.... sometimes not at all) to the desktop and then back to the login screen. The first thing I did was take out the hard drive and slave it in a working system. Then I ran malware bytes, super anti spyware, and Avira. All three programs found infections which I deleted. After putting the hard drive back in the syster and still not able to login I then tried using a linux live cd and was able to use the machine that way(so I think the hardware is fine). I tried re-seating the ram and ran memtest 86. Now I am not sure what to try next. Should I attempt a windows repair? As a last resort I could just reinstall the os but I would rather solve the problem if possible. Any feedback is appreciated.

 

This has happened to me before on a few computers and it was a corrupted userinit.exe file each time.

If you google "corrupted userinit.exe" you should get some hits on how to fix this.
If nothing else, you could either copy the same file from a machine of the same os installation / patch level , or worse case scenario do a quick repair install of the installation.

Good luck.

 

Thank you for the tip bigd. I will try that.

 

Thanks Halo!

 

Hey guys I tried the advice and followed the links using these steps.



"First off, boot your computer from your Windows XP restore cd/OS cd, when the menu comes up hit the R key to get to the recovery prompt.

The prompt should start off at C:\Windows. Type cd system32. The prompt should now read C:\Windows\system32

Type: copy userinit.exe wsaupdater.exe"


but after typing the last command and hitting enter I get "The system cannot find the file specified."

Any ideas as to why? or what to try next?

 

double

 

At the "C:\Windows\system32>" prompt type dir user*.*

Do you see userinit.exe listed?

 

No. I get...

The volume in drive C has no label
The volume Serial number is 592e-c3b4

Directory of C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEMS32\user*.*


not sure what to make of that.

 

I'm not sure what to make of it either you should have at least 3 files that start with user.

How about dir us*

Do you get a list of files? [I'm just trying to figure out if your system32 directory is mostly intact].

 

the files listed are:

user.exe
usere32.dll
userenv.dll

 

It looks like your userinit.exe is missing.

A couple of threads replaced it from the XP CD but it has to be the same version and service pack as the computer.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=183313
and exact commands in Chasling's post http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=160557 [CD drive letter "D" may be different on your machine]

I guess it couldn't hurt to try even if you don't know the SP number of the machine you are working on. You could always delete the unusable userinit.exe if it didn't work.

 

Looks like it still won't work for me. I may just have to reinstall the os. Thanks for the help though.

 

have you been able to backup all the data off the hard drive allready? if so - yeh id recommend a format, format cures all =D

 

Were you able to expand the file from the CD?

I was going to say if you have backed up your data during the slave portion of your attempts at fixing the problem a Repair might be a good option. If it doesn't work you can always do the format. Non Destructive Repair.