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General discussion

Continuous Reboot Cycle

by jwpw Aug 25, 2007 2:37AM PDT

I know there have been similar posts on this subject and I've read several, but none seem to resolve the problem.

When first booting the system it gets to a windows screen and reboots - ad infinitum. When booted in "safe mode" it reads several files (in DOS - I think) and stops on reading a path on the "C" drive ending with something like ...../AGP 440 or ..../AGP 44? (or something smilar).

Do you think it is looking for graphics drivers??? I have gone into the BIOS set up to change from a PCI graphics card to the on-board, and there appears to be no PCI card.

So, other than re-installation of XP (home) is there any way to save what's on the HD? I am considering installing a new HD and making the existing HD the "slave" and installing XP on the new HD.

Will this work? Will I be able to "read" the files on the old HD so that they can be copied off elsewhere?

Not more than a long time PC user here, so I need some Guru advice to help get my daughter's PC back up and running.

Pent IV; 1G RAM; XP Home. That's all I know about the sys. It was built by my daughter's uncooperative EX.

Thx
~jw

Discussion is locked

12 Posts
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Start with a question
by Steven Haninger Aug 25, 2007 3:34AM PDT

How long has this been going on and can you point to something done to the PC just prior to the problem occurring? This could be a new piece of hardware or even a driver update for an existing one. What you might try first is to boot the PC and press F8 as Windows first starts to load. You will have several options. One of these will be "Last Known Good". I'd try that option first. If that doesn't work, restart the same way and select Safe Mode. From here you can press Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools and select System Restore. Select a date you knew the PC to be working. It will need to reboot and restore settings saved from that time. If that does not work, post back. There are other escalation levels. To answer your other question, It might be possible to install Windows on another drive and access this faulty one to retrieve data. If it has physical damage to the disk, some data could be lost for good.

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Answer for Steven
by jwpw Aug 25, 2007 4:11AM PDT

Thanks Steven- I've been through the F8 options you mention, to no avail. The prob. started one evening and has not changed since. The only thing I can think of that wuld have effected it wuld be a voltage spike - there were elec storms in the area but no loss of pwr. FYI-the same thing happened to one system at work on the same evening. The boss started reloading XP right away so we lost all on that syst. I wuld like to save my daughter's fotos of the kids for her though - that's why I'm working so hard on this one.
TNX again.
~jw

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Possible hardware failure
by Steven Haninger Aug 25, 2007 9:57AM PDT

XP will attempt a restart upon some failures rather than just freeze. Perhaps you have experienced such. If you have critical data on that drive, you might be better off just attaching it to another system to collect what's needed. My guess is that, if you have experienced a hardware failure, the HD is probably ok. You might have a bad power supply, memory, or a motherboard component causing the problem. Power supplies are usually easy to replace and fairly inexpensive. They take the first hit from any voltage spike. You could go that route. Otherwise, if saving the photos is a priority, you could attach the drive to another system but not as the boot drive. That would definitely cause a continuous reboot problem. Attach it as a secondary drive but to a system that runs XP....not Win 98. It should see the drive and you can extract the needed data. One word of caution when doing. The system you attach it to will cause XP to see the hardware change. It keeps tabs on the number of hardware changes that take place and, at some point, can trigger the need to reactivate. A work around to this would be to put that drive into an external enclosure using USB and attach it that way. Windows is more forgiving of such. I've found this generally to work but others have not.

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Good Idea
by jwpw Aug 25, 2007 10:14AM PDT

I considered placing the HD into another system but wasn't sure that was the best idea seeing as how I know not what caused the failure in the first place - i.e. virus, etc. But if you think that might be best, maybe that's the way to go. The USB connection sounds interesting. I suppose there are (is) components available to set the HD to run externally???

TNX again.
~jw

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External enclosures are commonplace
by Steven Haninger Aug 25, 2007 1:05PM PDT

You'll see external drives available that include the hard drive and enclosure already put together. You can also buy just the enclosure. You need to know the whether the drive is ATA or SATA. The ATA drives have a long 40 pin connector (two rows of 20) and are about 2" wide. The SATA connectors are less than an inch wide. The external enclosures generally run in the 30-50 dollar range with some less and some more. These enclosures generally have an external power supply and will come with a variety of interfaces...USB being the most common. If your drive is ATA (sometimes called IDE or PATA, it will have jumpers. Sometimes failure of PCs to recognize these drives in external enclosures is due to the jumper setting. Generally you will use the "master" or the "cable select" option...whichever works for you. If you do any on line computer shopping, you will find them everywhere. I've found <NewEgg.com> (marks inserted intentionally) to be a good and reliable source for such parts. That's about all I can offer for now. Good luck.

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I have the same problem!
by winmak Aug 27, 2007 5:55AM PDT

I recently set up a computer school at a place where power surges are common. One of the computers (Pentium 4 2.26Gz processor, DDR 1, 512 Mb RAM, Intel Chipset 865GV, 80 GB HDD IDE Seagate)developed this problem: it boots well and loads windows completely but when idle or when you activate a program, it switches off and reboots. Sometimes it completes the reboot but mostly it loops several times without successful booting! Now, I thought it was a software problem so I reinstalled winows but the problem recurs. Now there seems to be a pattern that when I try to run things from my DVD writer (BENQ) the problems occur more frequently. somebody please help because i don't want to buy a new motherboard!

winmak wmakanga@yahoo.com

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Sounds like the machine needs repair?
by r. proffitt Former Forum moderator Aug 27, 2007 7:04AM PDT

The machine looks a little dated. If you've reloaded the OS and the problem remains you need to repair the machine.

Why do you think it's a motherboard failure?

Bob

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had a similar problem before!
by winmak Aug 27, 2007 7:46AM PDT

i had a somewhat similar problem, got advice from some friends who recommended a motherboard replacement. it worked, though the cost of a good motherboard was painful!

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Cheaper than a trip to the repair shop.
by r. proffitt Former Forum moderator Aug 27, 2007 8:34AM PDT

Sorry but motherboards here run from 35 to just over 100 bucks and a trip to the repair counter is 120 and up.

So far the details do not point to a failed board.

Bob

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Check the event log for clues
by Steven Haninger Aug 27, 2007 7:16AM PDT

You might see warning messages faulting a specific component. I had a similar issue years ago with a video card. It would get caught in a reboot loop quite often. My problem turned out to be the card's latest driver and returning to a previous one fixed it until the manufacturer fixed it for good. Check your event log for clues. What you can do, if this happens frequently enough, is clean out the log and view it the next time the reboot issue occurs. It places a time stamp on each event.

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Hardware problem
by sheilakmcd Aug 26, 2007 8:14PM PDT

As suggested, take out the hard drive and install it as a slave drive in another computer, copy off what files, pics you need and burn them to a cd for safekeeping. It would be very rare for a slave drive installation to trigger an xp activation problem.

You said: "stops on reading a path on the "C" drive ending with something like ...../AGP 440 or ..../AGP 44? (or something smilar)."

This error message actually has nothing to do with AGP or drivers, and is indicative of hardware failure, as suggested. Most likely from power surge/voltage spike as you described. If this was my pc, I would replace the power supply. Then if I didn't have one, I'd use another PC to make a memtest64 floppy (or CD, if the faulty PC has no floppy drive) and test the memory.

You are more than likely to find one or all memory sticks are bad, but you are wasting your time testing it if you don't replace the power supply. If the power supply is flaky, you are not going to get an accurate test.

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XP power cycling during boot
by Robbajoe Oct 8, 2009 11:09AM PDT

i have a p4 2.66Ghz with 504 meg of RAM
this system has a dual boot with XP and Ubuntu. it has been this way for several months, and i have been able to use both OSes without any trouble. today I was planning on upgrading my video card, however when I powered on the machine, before touching any hardware, the XP OS would not boot. it gets as far as the welcome screen and then cycles the power. meanwhile i can still successful boot in Ubuntu. i did perform a restore back to a know good point but that has not resolved the issue.
any thoughts?

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