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Question

Endless restart loop and cant start in any safe mode option

Nov 20, 2012 6:56AM PST

I have an Emachines running XP version 5.1.2600 and as of yesterday it does a constant restart loop and wont boot up. It gets to the windows loading screen blips black and restarts. I am unable to start in safe mode or any other option eg: safe mode with networking etc.
I have not installed any new software and only noticed this happening as of yesterday morning and the computer was fine most of the day until last night when it wouldn't boot at all and just does the continuous restart.

When I start in safe mode and it loads drivers it stops on "drivers agpCPQ.54" or S4 cant remember. Then goes into restart loop.

When I hit F8 and get the start menu and select automatic restart disable it gives me a stop: 0x000000F4 (0x00000003, 0x84AC96E8, 0x84AC985C, 0x805C86BC).

I do not have an XP os disk.

Any ideas???

Discussion is locked

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Answer
WIthout the XP CD how do you maintain your PC?
Nov 20, 2012 7:40AM PST
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reply
Nov 20, 2012 11:46PM PST

I did run chkdsk and I remember seeing 0 bad sectors. Since this is an old 6+ year machine and is incredibly outdated I question if its worth saving but I dont necissarly have the cash to throw down on a new one.

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How did you run CHKDSK given the story above?
Nov 20, 2012 11:54PM PST

I only know what you tell above. And when Safe Mode fails along with Last Known Good Boot, there are few fixes and none if we are working without clues.

If you just need a machine to get on the web and such, consider Ubuntu.
Bob

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I got to a dos prompt or somewhere I could type in commands
Nov 21, 2012 3:57AM PST

then typed "chkdsk" an it ran a report becuase on another site they sugested if I could do that to try it and see if it pulled any bad sectors. I am not the most computer literate when it comes to this kind of problem/issues and its hard to remember exactly how I did this on Sunday night but I do remember it said 0 bad sectors,

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Chkdsk by itself does no repairs.
Nov 21, 2012 4:26AM PST

You have to add the /F (for fix) or it doesn't do a thing. It's a basic command so be sure to check it out.

Without the XP CD, our options are very limited.
Bob

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CHKDSK/F?
Nov 21, 2012 5:02AM PST

What would this accomplish? After talking to several people it seems the HD is ok just my OS is toast. And I either need to repair it somehow or re-install which I would loose all data.

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It's a command for chkdsk.
Nov 21, 2012 5:22AM PST

You can research what it does but it's a common cure for some issues like this one.

-> Why would you lose all data? We can put this HDD into another case or PC to copy what we forgot to backup among many other solutions to get the files out before we reinstall the OS.
Bob

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new info
Nov 22, 2012 12:29AM PST

I did find an OS disk that is for reinstalling the operating system. After inserting the disk and pressing to be after f11 key it starts copying the files gets to about 25% then the computer screen showes the blue screen with an error message and I have to hard shut down. Tried this several times but I always get the same result.

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That's a different issue.
Nov 22, 2012 1:09AM PST

And now with your files safe, we can discuss other issues and possible cures.

1. Always unplug USB things when installing Windows. (keyboard, mouse should be fine.)
2. Try again.
3. Fail? Could be a bad HDD, ram or other. Since we can't see the blue screen it's not possible to give a nod to anything in particular.

But many XP machines never got cleaned up. Here's a prior discussion about that.
http://forums.cnet.com/7723-6122_102-569818/getting-ready-to/?tag=contentBody;threadListing

Bob