Windows XP continually reboots

G'day everyone,

Just a newbie problem here. My next neighbour came around and said she has a problem with her computer. The problem is that she was surfing the net and left her computer for about half an hour (still connected to the net) and when she came back her computer has rebooted. It came up with the options:

Boot in safe mode
Boot in safe mode with command prompt
Last known good configuration...
and other options i can't remember

so I decided to choose Last know good configuration and the computer just reboots itself and comes back with the same options as above. Decided to choose boot in safe mode and the same thing happens (reboots and back to the same options as above). Actually it doesn't matter what options you choose it just reboots and comes back with the same options.

And then I decided to press F8 during reboot so I can disable Windows XP restarting again and I ended up with the BSOD with the following error messages:

UNMOUTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

IF THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IT OCCURRED .......

STOP: 0x000000ED (0x87387C08, 0xC000009C, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

After seeing that error message decided to start the Windows XP recovery console and decided to do a chkdsk /r, it is now currently stuck on 60% completed.

and now I'm stuck - does that mean that her hard drive is stuffed?
should I restart the recovery console and try chkdsk /p or fixboot?
Am I even in the right track?

Her PC specs are:
well she doesn't really know, all I know is her operating system is Windows XP Pro service pack 1 and she said her CPU is a Pentium 2.4.

Any help would be appreciated.

Chkdsk /r should fix things according to this
http://www.rm.com/Support/TechnicalA...?cref=TEC71448

If you get it to boot properly install SP3. I'm sure the fix is in there somewhere..

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and she said her CPU is a Pentium 2.4

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"2.4 gigahertz" is not a version number.

Just an update..

Well I ended up restarting Windows XP recovery console and started chkdsk /p which was I must admit was quicker. It came back with one or more sector errors. So next I decided to FIXBOOT which according to the recovery console will write me a new boot.ini and everything was good.

So with renewed confidence I rebooted the computer hoping that everything will be working but alas nope it still continues to reboot. So I will have to try chkdsk /r tomorrow. Apparently it really does take a long long time. Hopefully it will work then.

Otherwise with sector errors in the hard drive, would it be wise to suggest to my neighbour that it's time to get a new hard drive?

I would suggest that you find out the make of drive, go to the manufacturer's site and get their diagnostic tools and run them.

"chkdsk" is not the sharpest tool in the shed.

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"2.4 gigahertz" is not a version number.

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True, but if you take that, and XP SP1 it suggests a machine that is at least 5 years old? I don't know what your mileage is, but I tend to find that HDDs fail in the first 6 months or several years down the line?

Buy a new drive. Run chkdsk /r and either ghost (image) the old drive or
at least back it up. If chkdsk told you it has bad sectors, you better pull
any pertinent data off there.

brokencrow is right, back up any important stuff first. You should assume that if the HDD is going bad it is getting worse as time progresses.

:(

Thanks for all the advice fellows
Very much appreciated

just wondering if anyone actually looked at the stop error

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q297185/

Unfortunately I have seen it all too frequently, particularly with "deathstar" drives :D

In all cases it was a corrupt file system, which the reporting of bad sectors and continuous rebooting seems to confirm here.

The first thing is to save any important data (if there is any) as you never know how much longer the drive is going to last. In this case I noted that the OS is Windows XP SP1. I find it hard to believe that someone who hasn't updated their OS in 5 years has been fastidious about backups.

My next step would be to run the HDD manufacturer's diagnostics from a floppy or CD and see if there is anything wrong with the drive. If there isn't then chkdsk /r should do the trick (otherwise format and reinstall). If there is, you need a new drive.

In any event the operating system needs to be updated, and I would guess that the AV, anti-malware and firewall are in a poor state as well.

yeah. ur gonna have to clean install. it happend to me, but i was messin with stuff. not so much as a bad hardrive, once i reformatted i was all set. i actually fixed the restarting problem, i cant remember how, which lead to an error message durin bootup about some boot file. i could be out on a limb here but is it not probable that a virus caused this. if so than i would bring up about better protection to ur neighbor.

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yeah. ur gonna have to clean install.

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No! The first thing to do is to find out if there are any important data on the drive that have not been backed-up, and save them.

Then determine if it is a hardware problem............... if it is, you don't want to continue using that drive, or waste time on a re-installation. Buy a new one and start afresh.

Only if the drive checks out would I do a clean install. I generally use the manufacturer's zero fill tool before doing this. If there isn't one, then a tool such as DBAN will suffice.

chaosclown, in your situation you knew it was something that you had done. This is more like what I deal with on a regular basis, that is a typical home user whose system has suddenly started acting up, and the one thing you can be pretty certain of is that they haven't been messing around. :)

yeah i love messin wit stuff and then having it go terribly wrong and then have to fix. its the only way to learn in my opinion. i found out a few things too, 1. was that a 18 year old hd doesnt work in most of todays computers. and 2. 2 gigs of extra space wasnt worth it