Windows Re-booting!

Luseac · 30 Sep 2006 at 08:26

I first started having problems about a week ago when for some reason Norton firewall started playing up, it just kept popping up with a window asking me to set permissions for programs which had already been set... Fine I thought, it's probably just norton. So I uninstalled and got zone alarm. However during the time that it was playing up, and for the past week my PC would periodically just shutdown, I would just go to open WMP or anything really and bosh, it powered down.

Things took a turn for the worse last night when the same thing happened, however now when I try to re-boot I get the usual screen that asks me to choose between safe mode, normal windows etc. I select one and it gets to the Sart-up screen and then decides to re-start for no apparent reason.

I'm not sure whether this is hardware or software based so I thought I would post it in here first.

I'm running
AMD 64-bit 3700 san deigo
2GB PC 4000 (i think) crucial ballistix
7800GTX 256
250GB Western Digital (again not 100% sure) SATA.

Any help would be much appreciated.

shine · 30 Sep 2006 at 08:28

Do you get any errors before it reboots?

Pulseammo · 30 Sep 2006 at 11:04

Might be a faulty drive. It sounds like your windows install has certainly gone corrupt. Perhaps download the WD diagnostics from their site (you'll need a bootable dos mode one) and test the drive. Could have been a virus though.

HangTime · 30 Sep 2006 at 12:09

lucasade1 said:
blah blah bla

...ballistix...

blah blah bla

First port of call for me would be a memtest

munge · 30 Sep 2006 at 13:10

HangTime said:
First port of call for me would be a memtest

Sounds like what my PC was doing with the Ballistix. Eventually got them to refund the cost of them after A LOT of persuasion. Sure there's a thread in the memory section about Ballistix memory.

Definitely start with the memory though, as above.

bledd · 30 Sep 2006 at 13:32

what version of windows are you running?
does anything appear in eventlog -start, run, eventvwr

aix0 · 30 Sep 2006 at 14:42

Try choosing 'Last Known Good' from the boot menu, that might get you in.

Luseac · 30 Sep 2006 at 16:01

shine said:
Do you get any errors before it reboots?

Well now i've got to the stage where it just reboots on the windows startup screen, no chance to even see an error.

bledd said:
what version of windows are you running?

Windows XP

Pulseammo said:
Might be a faulty drive. It sounds like your windows install has certainly gone corrupt. Perhaps download the WD diagnostics from their site (you'll need a bootable dos mode one) and test the drive. Could have been a virus though.

So I can download this tool from the windows site, burn it onto a CD and check?

munge said:
Sounds like what my PC was doing with the Ballistix. Eventually got them to refund the cost of them after A LOT of persuasion. Sure there's a thread in the memory section about Ballistix memory.

Definitely start with the memory though, as above.

I have heard a lot of bad stuff about Ballistix and the thought had crossed my mind. How do I go about getting the memory tested?

HangTime said:
First port of call for me would be a memtest

As above, how do I do a memtest?

aix0 said:
Try choosing 'Last Known Good' from the boot menu, that might get you in.

'Friad that doesn't work

bledd · 30 Sep 2006 at 16:30

bledd. said:
does anything appear in eventlog -start, run, eventvwr

-mem test, its a part of this disc..
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

burn it to disc using imgburn (both are freeware)

it'll make a bootabledisc, so once its burnt, restart pc and it should boot from the cd, give you a menu, choose memtest

Luseac · 30 Sep 2006 at 18:22

bledd. said:
-mem test, its a part of this disc..
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

burn it to disc using imgburn (both are freeware)

it'll make a bootabledisc, so once its burnt, restart pc and it should boot from the cd, give you a menu, choose memtest

Thanks but i'm having problems finding an .iso version on that website. Could you link to one that will be able to be used as a bootable disk?

bledd · 30 Sep 2006 at 20:38

the exe and zip files just contain the iso

download whichever one, extract, and you'll have the iso

Pulseammo · 1 Oct 2006 at 13:20

lucasade1 said:
*snip*

So I can download this tool from the windows site, burn it onto a CD and check?

*snip*

WD = Western Digital, I believe the tool is called "Data Lifeguard" or something similar.

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp

I do believe you need the "Diagnostics CD for DOS". It should check the drive for bad sectors and other errors. Assumably you burn it to a CD which will be bootable (remember to set the boot priority in the bios to make sure it boots the CD before your drive).

I can't help much more with the actual workings of the program though, I've only used the Seagate version - "Seatools". But I imagine its very much the same concept.

Luseac · 1 Oct 2006 at 21:05

bledd. said:
the exe and zip files just contain the iso

download whichever one, extract, and you'll have the iso

Ok maybe i'm missing something, I got the zip and extracted all the files to a sperate folder, it's called ubcd iso however how can I make all these files into an image? I see no .iso files and I can't use img burn because there aren't any files in the zip supported. :confused:

Pulseammo, thanks for that, i'll look into it

Luseac · 1 Oct 2006 at 22:10

Nevermind, I sorted it using Magic ISO, currently runing a memtest...

Luseac · 2 Oct 2006 at 18:44

New thread:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=7939843