[Ocean_]

So I was using my PC last night, I wake up this morning, and the thing is stuck in this loop. The bios will finish loading, then the system will just restart. I've unplugged my second hard drive, disk drives, CD burner, and all my PCI cards, in case one of them was shorting the system, and nothing changes. I can even get to the startup menu (F8) and choose safe mode, normal mode, etc...but after I make my choice, it restarts again--so maybe windows is the problem? I was poking around inside the tower, I could also have messed up some hardware, so really I don't know where to look for a solution. Any ideas?

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Have you tried Last Known Good Configuration from the F8 menu ?

[Les1451]

Have you tried Last Known Good Configuration from the F8 menu ?

[Ocean_]

Yup. Same result. I'm going to try loading my HDD in a different computer and see how that works.

[pogonici]

try keeping CTRL+SHIFT pressed when booting. it might work. if yes check what is launched on startup ...
Pogo

[Les1451]

Try System Restore.

[wannabe1]

Hi Ocean_...Welcome to G2G!

Trying to boot this HDD in another machine won't work....the hardware will be different and will not recognize the OS.

Do you have your install cd or is this an OEM preinstall?

wannabe1

[Ocean_]

Well I can't system restore, les1451, if I can't load windows. (Or can I!?)

Wannabe, the OS was on my machine when I bought it...and what I mean by trying in another computer is, checking to see if there are any corrupted windows system files (not necessarily booting from that hard drive as master.) And why wouldn't it boot properly? I mean I've done it before at LAN parties and such...

EDIT: Just for the sake of giving you all the details, there's a little more to this story. I've had a bad virus for a few days and I couldn't do anything with my computer. Gaelicum.A, I think, and I got rid of it last night using AVG's vcleaner.exe, and then I rebooted, and I worked my computer like normal. While I was doing the virus-cleaning, I took out my second HDD to keep its files from getting infected, and also in case I had to use it to lifeboat my files from HDD1 to a clean computer. So once I had my system all cleaned up, I turned it off, and went to bed. When I woke up this morning, I plugged in my second HDD, turned it on, and that's when the problem started. I haven't been able to get it to work since.

Edited by Ocean_, 04 September 2005 - 02:11 PM.

[wannabe1]

Normally, an operating system installed using one set of hardware ie: mobo, cpu, etc...will not boot properly without that hardware present..unless, of course it is very similar hardware.

What brand of machine is this and did it come with recovery cd(s)? Can you get to Safe Mode with Command Prompt (should be an option on the option screen)?

wannabe1

[Ocean_]

It's a no-name machine, I bought a couple of these computers at different times from two chinese guys who put them together "for cheap." Nope, I can't get to any kind of windows--safe mode or otherwise, not even last known good configuration. I don't have a recovery CD either. Just for fun, I tried booting from a few antivirus CDs and diskettes, and that works just fine--so it seems the only thing that I can't boot from is my hard drive. I'm going to try booting the "bad" drive on this computer and see if that works out.

[Ocean_]

Well whaddya know, good call. I can't boot from that hard drive on this computer. Short of reformatting, "what now?"

EDIT: This sounds like EXACTLY the problem I have. I mean, the blinking cursor on a black screen is what I always get prior to the windows XP pro loading screen, and so I attribute that to the bios loading....but instead of loading XP, or instead of just sitting there, like this guy had problems with, my machine restarts. And looks like he didn't find the solution either...

Edited by Ocean_, 04 September 2005 - 02:42 PM.

[fleamailman]

just curious, do you or a friend have an enternal harddrive case that can connect to the usb port in his computer, it is worth a try and worked for sometimes, at least you will be able to recover your data if you have then reformat.

[Ocean_]

USB, wouldn't that take like...all day? I do have a second hard drive, and between these two computers, that makes three. So I think I can work something out, or spread my data over a bunch of DVD+Rs.

[wannabe1]

Ocean_...

The virus info was helpful...hopefully not too many files were damaged or removed.

Read this Microsoft Article. You'll need a bootdisk to accomplish this repair. You can download one HERE.

Give this a shot first and keep us posted on your progress...there are lots of talented folks here willing to help you with this. This kind of problem can be pretty sticky to fix.

wannabe1

Problems like this are why removing virus' and malware is best done with the guidance on a malware specialist such as those avilable in the G2G Malware Forum.

Edited by wannabe1, 04 September 2005 - 03:08 PM.

[Ocean_]

Wow, thanks so much. I'm going to back up my important files and give it a go, I'll get back to y'all.

[Ocean_]

So the plan didn't go too far....either my boot disk isn't properly configured for my system, or something more serious is wrong with my computer's windows. Either way, I can't boot from the boot disk.