HELP PLEASE! Cannot Start Computer - Keeps Rebooting

[DaCurryman]

The Specs:

Athlon XP 1600+
256 MB DDR Ram
80 Gig HD
Win XP Professional

The Problem:

I'm normally good to my computers and can fix problems my brother has, but this one has got me. His computer was running fine for months, then all of a sudden it just rebooted and now it wont completely start-up. When you power-on, it gets as far as the Win XP loading page and then just reboots again...and it'll keep going till you turn it off.

It asks if you'd like safe mode, but it doesnt make a difference, it still wont start up. I tried to reinstall Win XP, but I cant get access to the CD-ROM drive even with a boot disk. I even tried to take out the HD so I could put in my older PIII 450 and save important info and then reformat the whole thing, but the computer wouldnt recognize it. (Not sure if I connected/setup it right).

Anyways, I think you get the idea. If you have any help for me, please, I'm all ears. Need more info, just post and I'll reply. Thanx in advance.

 

[xospec1alk]

anything added recently?

 

[DaCurryman]

Nope...only thing added was a CD-RW but that was added a few months before this started happening, so it was running fine for like 6 months.

 

[amdskip]

Just reset the CMOS making sure to boot from the cdrom with the windows XP cd in there and it will fine. Unplug all the extra stuff like network cards, sound, etc for simplicity of things.

 

[DaCurryman]

ok, I'm retarded, but how do I reset the CMOS?

And when you say remove the network, and sound...do you mean just the cables, or the actual card from the PCI slot?

Lastly, I wont lose my data and files will I, 'cause that's my main concern.

 

[Sophia]

Is this a home built or a major brand? I had the same problem the other day with an HP Pavilion and after talking to support for quite a while, ended up doing a non-destructive system recovery (F10 at boot, no cd required), but I don't know if those directions will apply to you.

 

[DaCurryman]

It is home-built. I've tried all the "F" keys and even if it gets me to the choose "safe mode"...safe mode doesnt start up either. damn this is frustrating...

 

[Duvie]

simple way of resetting cmos is pop out battery on mobo for about 30-60seconds then pop it back in....Then try to run the reinstall of winxp or recovery off of winxp disk....

See if you can take that HDD to another computer and access its data...copy as a backup and then do a fresh reformat and then go back to other computer...

I dont think it is necessarily a corrupted OS as the trouble to do a recovery or reformat seems to difficult...It may be hardware related to the HDD itself...corrupted boot sectors???