Hi, I'm new the the forum but I was wondering what I could do to fix this problem with my desktop.
It boots up with the standard model screen, past that into the devices/memory. It seems to read everthing fine. After the screen blacks out, and has with a flickering underscore on the top (and that's normal). Finally the system just reboots after that happens.
The screen after booting up the second time has the boot options with safe mode, normally etc. Safe mode does not boot up either.
Just keeps going in a reboot loop.
So far I've tested that the hard drive does indeed work, by placing it on another computer.
Someone told me it was RAM loose? but I checked it and it was fine, besides the computer wouldnt boot that far if it wasn't reading the RAM.
My second bet of what it is, is the video/graphics card but I'm not sure.
Is this the original drive or is it a drive that you cloned? Did you do any work on the computer before this occur?
That endless loop, I've encountered before, it occurs when windows xp cannot locate the next startup files.
Below are some possible fixes
1. If the computer had a abnormal shutdown, this can corrupt the system files. You can fix it by doing a chkdsk c: /f on the system partition. You can use a windows installation cd or a bartpe to run this fix.
2. If there was a rearranging of partitions this will affect the boot.ini file and might also cause a mismatch of drive letters. The registry tells windows xp which partition has the "startup files" if it points to the wrong partition you get the endless loop. To fix download the free "paragon rescue kit 9.0 express" bootcd, this utility can change drive letters and edit the boot.ini file.
You can rule out the MBR as being a problem, since window does began to load.
Also you can probably rule out a video card problem, if it was a video problem windows would still load but you will have a blank screen or no signal to monitor.
You can try a linux livecd (I use the gparted livecd, since it has other uses partition/testdisk/photorec) this livecd or any livecd can test to see if your hardware is working.
Everytime I encountered this problem I've always been able to fix it.
Uhm, yes I originally planned to install service pack 2, but it didnt work with various methods ontop of my service pack 1 system. So I decided to boot it with an xp disc preloaded with SP2 and do a repair. It must have been a bad idea lol, but I got SP2 on it.
So in order to run Chkdsk can I just put it as a slave on another computer and run chkdsk on the other HDD? I'm pretty sure that'd work just like I can run chkdsk on a flashdrive. Don't have the xp install disc on me, it's on my brother. Should I just wait?
you can slave the drive on another computer and run a chkdsk x: /f from the run box (x = the drive letter of the drive).
Or you can just open my computer/choose the drive in question right click/propertie/tools/error checking/make sure both boxes to fix errors are checked. The scandisk with the boxes to fix errors is the same as a chkdsk.
When you get the xp disk, make a bartpe with it (takes 15 minutes) it is a very valuable boot cd to have, You can also use that xp cd and slipstream it to sp3.
I also tested my SP2 hard drive on the other computer (the on I'm having troubles with) and.. It comes up with a BSOD and then restarts.
Maybe the desktop just doesn't like SP2?
Also how do I get it to boot off a disk, because when I go to bios, boot sequence, it only shows up with two devices; the HDD and the floppy?. No CD ROM option =(. One is a SATA drive, the other is just regular. This is a tricky computer to fix lol.
so the chkdsk didn't run? you can try slaving the bad drive on a computer that works and run a scandisk(withe boxes to fix errors checked).
You have to rule out file corruption as your problem first.
