Constant Reboot at Windows Load

[pwrslyd]

Having a look at a friend's computer, just to get an idea of what's going on before I have her take it to a qualified professional:


Boots fine, but when Windows (XP Pro) loads (it goes through the load screen and almost gets to the desktop), the system does a complete reboot. She says this has been going on for about 3 weeks or so.

I have no clue. I seem to recall my computer doing this a few years ago when the HDD was about to fail, but I was in the midst of my first computer build, so I didn't really pay much attention and just scrapped the old one.

If you need anymore info, I'll post what I can. Like I said, this is a friend's computer, so I have no idea what she did before this started happening.

[ski]

See if it starts in Safe mode by pressing and holding the F8 key and selecting Safe Mode during startup. If it does, then do a clean boot to find the cause.

If it does not start in Safe mode, then press the F8 key, and select "Last known good configuration".

If no luck, then go into BIOS, configure the CD-ROM drive as the first boot device, insert the Windows XP installation CD, restart, press R at the Welcome screen, press 1 to select the Windows installation, press Enter when prompted for the Adm. PW, type FIXMBR at the C:\Windows> prompt, and press Enter.
If that does not work, then restart with the XP CD still inserted, go back to the C:\Windows> prompt, type FIXBOOT, and press Enter.

If still no good, then do a repair install by restarting with the XP CD inserted, press Enter at the Welcome screen, press the F8 key at the Licensing screen, and press R at the Windows Setup screen. Windows will now reload the necessary files(NOTE: DO NOT press any keys when prompted to "Press any key to boot the CD" during the repair installation!).
All Windows updates and SP-2(if not included on the XP CD) will have to be reinstalled.

If that fails to solve the problem, then the HD may be bad. It can be checked by installing it as a Slave drive in another system, and running the diagnostics on it at the HD manuf's site.