Computer reboots after Windows XP boot screen

[rossmaylor]

i am running an amd athlon 1 ghz with 256 mb ram and a 40gb western digital hd. My computer started doing this a while ago, so i took the hd out and tried to take some of the data off it in another pc. however, was getting read/write errors, so assumed that was what was wrong with the original pc, and this hd has been sitting on my cupboard ever since. i had another 40gb WD HD lying about, so I put that in the original pc, formatted and installed a fresh copy of XP pro. works fine, for about a week. then starts doing the same thing again. The computer will start up fine, but I'll always get the "windows did not start successfully". Regardless of which option i choose, the computer resets itself. if i choose to start up normally, the windows xp pro boot screen comes up, then after a bit of loading it just restarts. if i choose safe mode, a list of drivers comes scrolling up on the screen, then it stops and resets itself. sometimes it works, but pretty rarely. any suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

[natejustice]

Hey! I had a similar situation arise a few times, with Dell Machines though. Take a look at your motherboard and see if any of the capacitors look like they are swollen or swelling out at the top. My machines were restarting like that as well, and it turned out it was a bad mobo.

Also, try running a diagnostic disk if you have one, to see if it comes back with any other hardware errors. I know some manufacturers provide a diagnostic disk when you buy the machine.

Hope this is of some assistance.

Regards,

Nate

 

[Grenage]

That looks like classic corruption to me. The hard drive is probably defective and has bad sectors. Best thing to do is run scandisk from a bootdisk.

You'll want to replace the drive though, a bad drive is a bad drive.


Carlsberg don't run I.T departments, but if they did they'd probably be more fun.

 

[rossmaylor]

thanks nate, ill have a look. the hard drive in it is from one of my other pcs, it was working perfectly in the other one. the hard drive that was originally in it (with the read/write errors) has been taken out.

 

[stduc]

If you are sure the drive is OK - main culprits are:-

RAM
Mobo (capacitors etc)
PSU

(In no particular order)

 

[dparrott]

I also had a very similar situation. Mine was caused by trying to map a network drive when it was already mapped from a previous logon. If I deleted the drives before I logged off, no problem, but if I didn't, it would reboot. I don't know if that has anything to do with your problem, but it is worth a look.

 

[bcastner]

Start the computer in Recovery Console:


From Recovery Console type:
chkdsk /r

(this will take a while to finish)

exit

 

[teash]

yes, do what bcaster said in the post above. I remember having this problem a while back. I highly doubt it's capacitor on the motherboard or any other physical problem. Most likely it's software related.

 

[wolluf]

rossmaylor - heed stduc's advice & if necessary extend it to ALL other hardware elements of the machine. If drive works perfectly in one machine & not in another its almost certainly a hardware problem causing corruptions. The chkdsk route may provide temporary fix (assuming bad hardware lets it finish ok - but it might just cause more corruption), but you need to go the eliminate problem hardware route (disconnect all unnecessary hardware, replace rest with known good - this can be difficult with motherboard of course (& cpu if you have no alternative to habd).

 

[rossmaylor]

capacitors had blown. argh. thanks everyone so much for your help. would have been stuck for ages otherwise!

 

[stduc]

So it's a new mobo, or if your handy with a soldering iron - or know someone who is, it's not too hard to replace a blown capacitor.

To replace the mobo I suggest you take a look at this thread.

Replacing a motherboard