HP Pavilion ze5700 (keeps restarting before I even get logged in)

[gotia]

My friends laptop keeps restarting and at boot it presents me with a screen that lets me choose between:

safe mode
safe mode with networking
safe mode with command prompt
start windows normally
start windows with last known good configuration.

No matter which one of these I choose it goes through the normal windows starting screen (except for the safe mode ones - they do the normal safe mode type of screen) but before it gets to where you enter your password it splashes a quick blue screen with some sort of error message and the laptop reboots so quick I am unable to read what it says. It does this when I choose any of the safe mode options as well.

I don't see anything in the BIOS I could change to affect my situation and my friend doesn't have any windows disks or anything. He has to wait for his father to come home to look and see if there are any.

What can I try on this laptop?

[nihil]

Hi,

In the BIOS turn off the power management options

Try and get a bootable CD (Bart PE, Whoppix, Ubuntu or whatever) and see what happens with that. If that works OK then it sounds like it could be malware. If it doesn't, then it sounds more like hardware.

[.:front2back:.]

this might be WAY of but i had a similar prob.
It turned out to be a stick of ram was faulty, have you tried removing one and seing if that was it.?

[devildell]

make sure you can hear the proc fan spinning. it could be thermal.

[Raion]

Did you do anything BEFORE this problem began? (Anything from installing new hardware to installing warez downloads, this also includes any re-adjusting inside your laptop)

[gotia]

Yes, he uninstalled doom 3 before this started happening. I'm trying to get snapshot of the whole blue screen and I'm going to write it all down.

So far I have manged to decifer one part of it... It says unmountable_boot_volume. I'll be back in a few when I get the shot, it's a bit tricky cause its flashing so quick but I know i can get it.

[nihil]

It sounds as if Windows is in a spot of bother: please try this

http://www.techtips4u.com/kb/sw/SW00014.htm

Remember to change the boot sequence in your BIOS

[gotia]

thanks thanks thanks guys for helping me. I finally found the 5 cds that came withthe laptop.
CD1 HP Quick Restore
System Recovery Disk
I put it in and hit F2 and changed to boot cdRom like instructions said to.

Now it says

Warning!
This action will completely reformat your hard drive and destroy all user installed applications and data and it says choose a language. Has anyone used these Cds before, If I choose the language will it start the format thing? I don't want to mess up my wireless by doing this. I don't really care about the applications and the other stuff. What does it do when I choose the language? thank you again for helping me.

[The Duck]

[quote]
You must spread your AntiPoints around before giving it to nihil again.
[/qutoe]

Nihil hit it right on the head... You beat me to it!! ...

**edit**

That's definitly not the recovery disk nihil is talking about... He's talking about the windows xp boot cd... from there you go to the recovery console and do the fixboot and chkdsk commands...

[nihil]

Hi,

If you go to the link you will find their download page. You can get what you need there.

Unfortunately, HP don't give you a "proper" XP CD. It is a CD that returns your machine to its original ex-factory condition. That is why it will delete any applications and data.

You will need 6 3.5" floppy disks.

Someone filled out the form to the right and asked about systems without a XP CD like Compaq and HP. If you have a XP system and don't have a XP CD please download the Windows XP boot disk from our Downloads page and use it instead of the XP CD.