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XP problem poss virus?
speedyxjs - 22/11/08 at 08:26 PM

My little sisters laptop has a problem. When you switch it on, it manages to get to the XP loading screen (with the load bar at the bottom), and then restarts and carrys on the loop.
I have tried starting in safe mode but it just does the same.
Any advice much appreciated.

dmac - 22/11/08 at 09:06 PM

Probably a corrupted file on the boot disk. If you can, boot from a recovery disk and run scandisk or some other disk recovery tool. As a last resort try the windows repair option.

Duncan

speedyxjs - 22/11/08 at 09:11 PM

Thanks dmac. Dont have a recovery disk. How do i use the windows repair?

BenB - 22/11/08 at 09:29 PM

Could also be a knackered memory stick... Try booting a Memcheck CD-rom and letting that run for a few hours....

dmac - 22/11/08 at 09:30 PM

To use windows repair, you boot from your windows XP disk and select the repair option.

You can make a repair disk using the information at http://www.ubcd4win.com/

Duncan

meany - 22/11/08 at 09:33 PM

quote:
Originally posted by BenB
Could also be a knackered memory stick... Try booting a Memcheck CD-rom and letting that run for a few hours....


i agree with the above, it happened to me a few months back, i tried allsorts, all to no avail...then realised my Dell PC has diagnostic lights on the back.....doh..
turned out to be one of the Memory sticks was knackered.

dmac - 22/11/08 at 09:36 PM

Its worth checking the memory (and the boot CD from the link I mentioned has memory testers built in) but memory problems are usually identified earlier in the boot process.

Duncan

vinny1275 - 23/11/08 at 12:10 PM

There are a couple of other options in the safe mode boot menu - you can get it to tell you which drivers it's loading as it does them - the last one to try before it reboots itself is likely to be the culprit. You then might be able to replace the file with a good copy from another machine.

HTH


vince