xp won't load...please help

I am helping a friend repair his machine that would not start properly. It would start the windows xp screen for 45 seconds or so, then reboot.
After repeated attempts trying to get windows to boot from a disc, nothing would work. I removed his hdd and installed it in my tower which allowed my to use the cd. I then went through the "repair" process hidden within the install. Then TimW in the malware forums helped me get the hdd running clean.
Now, I put the hdd back in the original tower only to find that when it boots, I get the Dell screen then the windows did not load/safe mode screen. Either normal start or safe mode only leads to an immediate reboot ending in the same screen.
Any ideas. Thanks

 

First off... I have a feeling that it wasnt the HDD that was at fault... so I hope all the info was backed up and you havent lost anything that you now cant retreive.

My first thought would have been to why all of a sudden it is rebooting... did you try to load it in safe made... and yes wait to see if it kicked through... I say this as I have seen some systems take 10-15 mins like they have hung to boot through to safe mode.

All that aside you have now a HDD clean and a form of install on it.

I know that I'm going to get a few shout backs on this on... but a dell system is best installed by a dell disk it has a few in built security issues that help with a good install.

By the way... when I first read the post... my initial though was you have a memory problem... or you have downloaded SP3... both these have very similar results.

XP is very unpredictable in loading it on one system then placing it in another... from data cables, cpu, speed to memory differences.

Best suggestion at this time is to see if you can get a Dell installation disk and start by installing it on your own system.
This will make sence in the future... espesialy with Dell site updates and registration of XP.

Stephen.

 

ps.. I meant safe mode...lol... and load in original dell system....doh

 

I guess I left out the beginning. He clicked a bad link that led to a serious infection that was hiding evrything from him. The more he tried to run scans and whatever else he did, the problem worstened to the point of the reboot problem.
I had to pull the hdd from his tower due to neither of his 2 dvd drives would read the cd. They would show up on the setup screen and I had set the boot to cd first. I even disconnected both trying one at a time set to secondary master and even primary slave.
Thankfully all info on the hdd is in tact and the cd I am using is Dell. I haven't tried to boot from the cd since I put everything back in his tower due to frustration at that point. When i tried safe mode, it immediately reboots and stops at the screen where you select safe mode.
As far SP3, he is not sure if he installed it.
I will try the cd in the morning and see if we can go from there.

 

Ok. I tried the cd again to no avail. I pulled the memory and switched the 2 around, nothing. I found a floppy start disk for win95, put that in and I can pull up the directory for Dsecondary master). Only problem... can't run setup from DOS. Is there some other command that I can try?

 

My first thing I would do at this point is, run in safe mode and check add and remove programs in controll pannel, check see if SP3 is installed...if so... uninstall.... reeboot ansee where we go from there.... nothing to loose.

Stephen

 

After a bunch of crap getting going again... The hdd is back in my old tower and SP3 is not installed. I put my old hdd with winME into his tower and I was able to boot from cd. It appears that even though I used a Dell cd, the fact that I repaired windows in my old tower is the only factor that seems to be affecting the start up in the dell tower.