Had to reinstall, but do YOU have a better solution?

[Majestic]

My client had a pc running Win Xp mce that kept on rebooting at the windows xp logo. It would start to load for a second then would reboot. It couldn't get into safe mode, last known good etc..

I performed a chkdsk /r and it completed. Still kept resetting.

I was going to use registry restore wizard using UBCD but apparently the computer got a trojan that deleted the points or something to that effect there was only one option and that was the first install over a year ago. I didn't think it would make much sense to roll it back then..

I did a repair install of Windows XP media centre and after it finished the install once more it did the resetting right after the selection before the xp logo.

In the end I had to do a full reinstall.

What I'm wondering here is if there would have been a faster/better way to do this? (to repair windows) or did I have no choice here.

In the past I've been able to chkdsk and/or registry restore or system restore (if safe mode were available and the restore points existed)...

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks,

Majestic

[NickCat11]

Before it reset itself, did it flash a blue screen? If so, what was the error?

[Majestic]

Before it reset itself, did it flash a blue screen? If so, what was the error?

There was no error, it simply reset in a loop.

Majestic

[rusty.nells]

When I get a repeated XP boot failure, I usually check the event and boot logs with UBCD4Win. The boot log must be enabled in the boot.ini file.

boot.ini example
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP" /bootlog
Not always succesful, but it's a start.

[bagellad]

I would have tested the hard drive while I had the computer. But sounds like it was a good cantidate for a n/p

[AtYourService]

type fixboot in repair mode
or even repair install would have been better than full install

[topshelfpc]

Sounds like a bad driver, but you said it didn't give any bluescreen. Did safemode work?

[Majestic]

When I get a repeated XP boot failure, I usually check the event and boot logs with UBCD4Win. The boot log must be enabled in the boot.ini file.
Not always succesful, but it's a start.

Wow it's definitely been a while since I even thought of boot.ini. That definitely may have worked or fixboot as anythingcomp suggested ... Must have been brain freeze on my part. However, that said I did perform a repair install and I would imagine that would repair any boot.ini problems but it still reset after os selection.

I guess I'll check that out in the future. Thanks all for your suggestions.

Majestic

[eric76]

I've had this problem before.
If you have a boot disk (UBCDWIN), use it to start the computer and check to see if userinit.exe (C:\windows\system32) and explorer.exe (C:\windows) is there. If not, copy it from another computer and place it in the proper folder. Make sure it's the same version of XP and service pack.

Also, load the registry and go to: HKEY LOCAL MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersio n\Winlogon
Once there, check to see if the value data of Shell is Explorer.exe and Userinit is C:\Windows\system32\userinit.exe, make sure the comma is at the end.

Or - if your using Windows XP Pro (which Media Center is) you can usually go to the dllcache folder located in windows\system32\dllcache — and you should have those files right in that folder.

Hope that helps you — the next time.

[joydivision]

I've repaired a lot of these machines and the story goes like this:-

I had a guy came round said it had to be reinstalled charged me £50 but 3 months later it does the same. I take it back stick it on the work top test the RAM and hard drive 8/10 times one of them comes back faulty.

Always try and find out the cause :)

Usualy in this situation I would replace the hard drive/RAM/PSU or even remove dust then run fixboot etc. Faulty RAM is a very very common reason this to happen. By formating you may have got round the problem but who knows when it will return?