Windows reboots over and over and over

[Beeman99]

I was transfering a file to my PSP, and my comp froze up. So I went to reboot it and it ran chkdsk, it found some files it had to fix on my system drive, and it continued on to the blue "Windows is starting up" screen, and it stays there for about 5 seconds, long enough for the mouse to appear and I can move it, but then it reboots, and that's as far as I get. I've tried to restart it in safe mode and with the last known working configuration, and it does the same thing. Any help soon would be great.

[CM Mark]

Get a mac. :action-sm

[Beeman99]

Get a mac. :action-sm


thanks, I'm fucked right now because there are files on it that I need to print for my flight tomorrow morning

*edit* thank god for the laptop, I'm able to get at the emails I need through webmail, good thing I didn't move them out of the inbox yet. Still wish I could find out what is going on with my desktop though

[CM Mark]

thanks, I'm fucked right now because there are files on it that I need to print for my flight tomorrow morning
That sucks. I really have no idea. Just wanted to be an ass. I'm not even a mac guy. Haven't used a mac since high school

EDIT: Good to hear you got your shit for tomorrow. Hope you can eventually get your PC fixed

[Beeman99]

That sucks. I really have no idea. Just wanted to be an ass. I'm not even a mac guy. Haven't used a mac since high school

EDIT: Good to hear you got your shit for tomorrow. Hope you can eventually get your PC fixed


this same fucking thing happened before with my ipod when I'd plug it in, as it would totally fuck windows so I couldn't even get past the initial boot screen. I changed the USB port and the power supply and it was working great.

I was just transfering a moving over to my PSP and it froze up, nothing to worry about I thought, and then when I went to boot it up it did what I stated above. If I had more time, I'd fart with it and figure it out, but I don't have time, but it's not that big of a deal as my gf will have the laptop to use while I'm gone

[JoeyDVDZ]

Can you launch in safe mode? If so, go into safe mode, launch msconfig & shut down all non-essential startup apps.

[Beeman99]

Can you launch in safe mode? If so, go into safe mode, launch msconfig & shut down all non-essential startup apps.


I tried that and it keeps doing the same thing, although I'm rushed for time tonight so I haven't really played with it much

[Mother Shucker]

I had the same problem a couple of years ago. My processor was over heating.

[Beeman99]

I had the same problem a couple of years ago. My processor was over heating.


never thought of that, well, it's going to sit for a week, so we'll see

BTW, as much as I hate to say anything like this to you, good run for the 24, 48, and 5 today, see the 25 is still the lost child of the company though

[Farm Flufer]

I had the same problem with mine a couple of weeks back. Turned out to be a hard drive failure :arrrh:

[DonTheTrucker]

I have a laptop hard drive that kinda does the same thing. It boots about half way, gives a blue screen (not the infamous one) that says something about a core dump or something, then starts booting all over. Will not boot in safe mode either.

I then take the drive, hook it up to a portable hard drive usb kit, and windows won't even recognize the drive as a storage device. I need to get some files off this drive. Any ideas?

[blazin]

I doubt its the processor overheating because a thermal overload wouldnt make your computer restart over and over, it would just shut it down.

do you see a blue screen flash very quickly? your computer is probably set to Automatically restart on system failure (winxp default setting)

its hard to tell what the error is, i record the monitor with my phone and freeze the frame on the blue screen so i can see the actual error.

Since you just turned your computer off due to it freezing I bet you corrupted your hard drive. Try running chkdsk /r in the recovery console. Im confident this will fix it. To do this, boot off the Windows CD, choose R for repair, recovery console. When you get to the screen, enter chkdsk /r, press enter. Come back to your computer in an hour or so when it finishes. Type exit and reboot the computer.


DonTheTrucker, when you get the bluescreen what is the error message in the top left of your screen?

[Mommadeez4u]

I have a laptop hard drive that kinda does the same thing. It boots about half way, gives a blue screen (not the infamous one) that says something about a core dump or something, then starts booting all over. Will not boot in safe mode either.

I then take the drive, hook it up to a portable hard drive usb kit, and windows won't even recognize the drive as a storage device. I need to get some files off this drive. Any ideas?

See if a Linux-booted PC can recognize it-- that's how I rescued my files in the thread 'IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL' in this same forum. Obtain Knoppix 5.1 on a CD and then boot from that CD. You should be able to see and drag-and-drop files from that HD.

[thelord68]

I have a laptop hard drive that kinda does the same thing. It boots about half way, gives a blue screen (not the infamous one) that says something about a core dump or something, then starts booting all over. Will not boot in safe mode either.

I then take the drive, hook it up to a portable hard drive usb kit, and windows won't even recognize the drive as a storage device. I need to get some files off this drive. Any ideas?

If the linux boot disk doesn't work, try RecoverLostData from Stompsoft. It's a paid program ($30), but you can try the demo to get an idea if it is possible to recover anything. I have successfully used this where the big data recovery services (who charge thousands) said it was hopeless.

[NoSurviivors]

post...


(oops - wrong thread) :action-sm

[DonTheTrucker]

If the linux boot disk doesn't work, try RecoverLostData from Stompsoft. It's a paid program ($30), but you can try the demo to get an idea if it is possible to recover anything. I have successfully used this where the big data recovery services (who charge thousands) said it was hopeless.

Will this work on a USB based drive?

[Aero 1]

dumb canadian. did you install something recently? probably a bad driver. its probably your faggot midget porn that you download frequently. how was your flight?

[Farm Flufer]

Yes, you should be able to use a USB connected drive. That's the way I recovered all of my files. I used Stellar Phoenix FAT & NTFS software that a friend hooked me up with. Worked like a charm.

[sknight]

Had a hard drive failure around late november that thelord was able to help me through. Sounds a lot like what is being given here. Fucking hard drive was fucked.

It's in an outboard enclosure now, but no way do I trust it because it doesn't behave normally.

[kid afrika]

To me it sounds like your USB driver crashed in the middle of a file transfer and that left orphaned data on your drive. That's why chkdisk ran. Now, the driver is still corrupt so windows is failing to load.

That's my take on it anyway.

If you can boot into safe mode, then you should be able to delete the driver and then load a new one when windows reboots and the add new hardware wizard starts.

If it happens to be USB ports on an expansion card, just pull the card.

In any case, I would go to the manufacturer's website and get the latest drivers.

[thelord68]

The RecoverLostData works on externally connected drives. If it the file system info is missing, it does a full scan of the drive sector by sector.

It can also be used to recover deleted files on a working drive, as well as deleted email in Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora and Netscape Mail.

[DonTheTrucker]

The RecoverLostData works on externally connected drives.

Even if Windows won't recognize the drive at all when it's hooked up?

[cknight725]

Even if Windows won't recognize the drive at all when it's hooked up?

Its worth a shot ... Linux is notorious for being able to access hard disks that Windows "gives up" on.

[thelord68]

Even if Windows won't recognize the drive at all when it's hooked up?

You will probably have to use the advanced mode, and browse for the physical drive (hard disk 0, hard disk 1) as opposed to the logical drive (c:, d:).

As long as the drive actually spins up, there is a good chance the program will work.

[sknight]

You're the best, lord. Thanks for all the computer help you give us.

When are you coming down for FH's?

[Mommadeez4u]

Two excellent threads on another bulletin board, these should be stickied in my opinion:

Troubleshooting Sudden Reboots/crashes (http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic44306.html)

Before posting your minidumps, please read this. (http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic51365.html) <---- no jokes please

[Sinn Fein]

I have a laptop hard drive that kinda does the same thing. It boots about half way, gives a blue screen (not the infamous one) that says something about a core dump or something, then starts booting all over. Will not boot in safe mode either.

I then take the drive, hook it up to a portable hard drive usb kit, and windows won't even recognize the drive as a storage device. I need to get some files off this drive. Any ideas?

Put the hard drive in the freezer. Get it nice and cold. Then hook it up and copy your files off onto another drive as quickly as possible using Ghost or something.

Hard drives that are going bad often tend to heat up very quickly, which is when they stop working. That is why it gets through the inital boot cycle, then it screws up. Now that it's warmed up, subsequent attempts fail. If you then let it cool down again and leave it alone for hours/days, it'll work again, same as before, boot up and then fail.

I've done this a bunch of times. If the drive is stone cold when you start, you'll get more time before it heats up to the point which causes the erratic operation to begin.

[Beeman99]

dumb canadian. did you install something recently? probably a bad driver. its probably your faggot midget porn that you download frequently. how was your flight?


talking of midgets, have you ever heard of a midget farmer. BTW, I'm not dumb, just tired

[sknight]

Put the hard drive in the freezer. Get it nice and cold. Then hook it up and copy your files off onto another drive as quickly as possible using Ghost or something.

Hard drives that are going bad often tend to heat up very quickly, which is when they stop working. That is why it gets through the inital boot cycle, then it screws up. Now that it's warmed up, subsequent attempts fail. If you then let it cool down again and leave it alone for hours/days, it'll work again, same as before, boot up and then fail.

I've done this a bunch of times. If the drive is stone cold when you start, you'll get more time before it heats up to the point which causes the erratic operation to begin.
Great tip. I would have thought this would have caused condensation inside the drive.

[Beeman99]

I doubt its the processor overheating because a thermal overload wouldnt make your computer restart over and over, it would just shut it down.

do you see a blue screen flash very quickly? your computer is probably set to Automatically restart on system failure (winxp default setting)

its hard to tell what the error is, i record the monitor with my phone and freeze the frame on the blue screen so i can see the actual error.

Since you just turned your computer off due to it freezing I bet you corrupted your hard drive. Try running chkdsk /r in the recovery console. Im confident this will fix it. To do this, boot off the Windows CD, choose R for repair, recovery console. When you get to the screen, enter chkdsk /r, press enter. Come back to your computer in an hour or so when it finishes. Type exit and reboot the computer.


DonTheTrucker, when you get the bluescreen what is the error message in the top left of your screen?

I try to run the chkdsk utility in the recovery console, but when it asks me for my admin password it tells me it's wrong after I enter it. I'm guessing about the only thing I can do now is reload windows

[Mommadeez4u]

if an admin password was never entered at the initial setup just leave it blank and it should go.

[Beeman99]

if an admin password was never entered at the initial setup just leave it blank and it should go.


i did have a password, so I'm just reinstalling windows right now

[Beeman99]

It crashed again, this time it said the system file was missing, tried to fix it in recovery with no luck, so I'm reinstalling windows, again. It only seems to happen when I'm transfering files to something through my USB port, and it's not everytime that it fucks up. I have a new usb card in, a new and bigger power supply, so what's causing it.

[Aero 1]

It crashed again, this time it said the system file was missing, tried to fix it in recovery with no luck, so I'm reinstalling windows, again. It only seems to happen when I'm transfering files to something through my USB port, and it's not everytime that it fucks up. I have a new usb card in, a new and bigger power supply, so what's causing it.

motherboard. 10-1 there is something wrong with the usrb root hub.

[Beeman99]

motherboard. 10-1 there is something wrong with the usrb root hub.


so outside of changing the motherboard, what can I do to fix this fuckup

[blazin]

so it crashed after reinstalling windows? did you install fresh or try to do a repair?

I'd delete the partition, recreate it, reformat the hard drive and reinstall windows.

Its not necessarily a hardware problem, just the software controlling it is out of wack.

[Beeman99]

so it crashed after reinstalling windows? did you install fresh or try to do a repair?

I'd delete the partition, recreate it, reformat the hard drive and reinstall windows.

Its not necessarily a hardware problem, just the software controlling it is out of wack.


it crashed a day after I did a clean reinstall of windows. It only happens when I am transfering something through USB (psp, Ipod, Treo), and it's not consistent as to when it crashes. Before these last two times it was a month since it had shit the bed

[Beeman99]

guess what, it's happening again

[blazin]

when you transfer and this happens, does it Blue screen? restart?

[Beeman99]

when you transfer and this happens, does it Blue screen? restart?


wasn't even transfering this time. It crashed yesterday after being good for a month, and I reinstalled windows, had it all updated, and it locked up again. Went to reboot it and it was pooched. I've just finished reinstalling it again, and I'm updating it right now

[blazin]

Very interesting. What message were you getting when you tried to reboot? Corrupt or missing files?

[Beeman99]

Very interesting. What message were you getting when you tried to reboot? Corrupt or missing files?


I give up, I'm just going to go buy a new comp, fuck it, this is bullshit. Teaches me for trying to get a 5 year old system to keep working like a new one

[blazin]

Yeah sounds like hardware problems...Freezing computer is usually hardware. What kind of computer is it?

you can probably just get away with replacing the mobo and some new ram. If you have an dell/gateway/compaq, etc. computer probably a case too.

Cheapie system could be a Celeron D 352 (3.2 ghz) processor, 512MB RAM, Intel mobo for ~$200. You can use your existing psu, cd/dvd drives and hard drives.

[Beeman99]

Yeah sounds like hardware problems...Freezing computer is usually hardware. What kind of computer is it?

you can probably just get away with replacing the mobo and some new ram. If you have an dell/gateway/compaq, etc. computer probably a case too.

Cheapie system could be a Celeron D 352 (3.2 ghz) processor, 512MB RAM, Intel mobo for ~$200. You can use your existing psu, cd/dvd drives and hard drives.


i might as well just get a new comp all around except for the dvd burner and both hd's, and get the new one to run vista. I'm already expecting it to cost me around $1200 when it's all said and done.

The worst part is the fucking computer just made it so that I can't access my second hard drive, and the last time I backed it up was a month ago. It comes up

D:\ is not accessible
The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable.


I remember there is a way to make it so that the computer reconizes the disk as clean, but I can't remember how to do it anymore

[blazin]

Try making an Ultimate Boot CD. Its worth a shot. Theres also a bunch of disk utilites on it. Its a handy disc to have around, regardless.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

[Beeman99]

thanks, I'll try looking at that site. I just hope that either I or the person I take the drive in with my email backups can get them off, I'm fucked without those files. Worst part is I thought about backing it up yesterday before it fucked up

[blazin]

thanks, I'll try looking at that site. I just hope that either I or the person I take the drive in with my email backups can get them off, I'm fucked without those files. Worst part is I thought about backing it up yesterday before it fucked up

Can you put the secondary drive in another computer and see if its readable?

[Beeman99]

I'm just looking at this site http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm right now, hoping it can help me out as well

[Beeman99]

Can you put the secondary drive in another computer and see if its readable?


unfortunetly no. I only have a laptop here with me, so not really any way to hook the second drive up to it

[blazin]

try getting a USB enclosure and hooking it to your laptop.

[Beeman99]

try getting a USB enclosure and hooking it to your laptop.


could try that. I just ripped my pc apart, have all the reusable, new parts packaged up and I'll be heading in tomorrow afternoon to see about getting a new one built. I sure hope that it doesn't take more than a week to get one built, although I have a feeling that I'm fucked in that regard

[TheOnion]

April 22nd Intel is cutting prices on their Core 2 duo's. Getting a new PC now might make you cry after you see what you could have gotten for the same price. I know that there is always a reason to wait when thinking about buying a new PC, but this is one I would strongly consider.

I recommend the Intel core 2 duo e6400. It's cheaper than the e6600 and can overclock to the e6600 performance level on the stock cooler. Even if you don't overclock, it will handle anything you throw at it.

[blazin]

April 22nd Intel is cutting prices on their Core 2 duo's. Getting a new PC now might make you cry after you see what you could have gotten for the same price. I know that there is always a reason to wait when thinking about buying a new PC, but this is one I would strongly consider.

I recommend the Intel core 2 duo e6400. It's cheaper than the e6600 and can overclock to the e6600 performance level on the stock cooler. Even if you don't overclock, it will handle anything you throw at it.

Wouldnt you rather have the E6600 being it has 4MB cache vs 2?

[Beeman99]

anyone know of a good free hard drive recovery program

[ruckstande]

anyone know of a good free hard drive recovery program
I didn't fell like reading this. Your hard drive won't boot or it is clicking and shit.

[Beeman99]

I didn't fell like reading this. Your hard drive won't boot or it is clicking and shit.
it'll boot, but windows won't open it as it says the disk is damaged. It's not as it's a new hd, the motherboard kept corrupting it. I'm formatting it as we speak,. I'll take my losses with any info I lose. The main thing I didn't want to lose was some emails, but I didn't lose anything too important.

[Aero 1]

anyone know of a good free hard drive recovery program

http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm

[Beeman99]

ty, but I'm formatting it right now. I can't wait to get the new system home, hopefully all these troubles will be gone. Learns me for being a cheap farmer I guess

[ruckstande]

If the disk is damaged you may want to run a thorough chkdsk. You could have bad sectors.

[GonzoRadio]

The MBR (Master Boot Record) might be damaged/corrupted. That's the special place a small bit of code lives that actually loads (boot straps) the OS. You data may still be ok.

Download a Linux live cd capable of reading NTFS (the default Windows file system) and burn it onto a cd and pop it into the PC giving you problems and see if you can access the files. I don't have time to research one for you right now, but here is a link to lead you: http://lifehacker.com/software/disk-recovery/geek-to-live--rescue-files-with-a-boot-cd-192982.php.

Good luck, and thanks for the reminder to back up more often. I back up every once in a while, but if my machine got hosed now, I'd be pretty fucked.

[Beeman99]

The MBR (Master Boot Record) might be damaged/corrupted. That's the special place a small bit of code lives that actually loads (boot straps) the OS. You data may still be ok.

Download a Linux live cd capable of reading NTFS (the default Windows file system) and burn it onto a cd and pop it into the PC giving you problems and see if you can access the files. I don't have time to research one for you right now, but here is a link to lead you: http://lifehacker.com/software/disk-recovery/geek-to-live--rescue-files-with-a-boot-cd-192982.php.

Good luck, and thanks for the reminder to back up more often. I back up every once in a while, but if my machine got hosed now, I'd be pretty fucked.


I used to do it once a week, but then i got slack, I learned my lesson again though