bℓσωηG Posted January 4, 2011 About a year ago, my laptop began to refuse to start up. Whenever I turn it on, it does what it normally does when starting up, but once it gets past the Windows XP loading screen, it reboots itself. Any ideas as to why this may be happening? I dont really care about the laptop itself but i have alot of family photos on it id like to retrieve as they were unfortunately not backed up anywhere... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rogdog Posted January 4, 2011 (edited) Maybe download a new OS on another computer? Just re-read your post...what about network your laptop to another PC and copy the files? Edited January 4, 2011 by rogdog Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
occidentalis Posted January 4, 2011 Download http://www.knoppix.net/ Use it to save your photos and other documents to an external harddrive Throw laptop away buy a mac Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
obtuse Posted January 4, 2011 use a linux os on cd to mount the drive so you can grab your files. then decide what you wanna do with the laptop. personally i reckon use ubuntu or damn small linux if your gonna keep the laptop. why xp is rebooting, it may be a virus, or a corrupted device driver. it may even be an error on the drive. make sure you scan your files with an antivirus just in case. amyway, lots of geeky fun. Cheers, Obtuse. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mac Posted January 4, 2011 (edited) PM me blowng if ya use msn i can talk ya through some fixes & am sure we can get it up & running again Edited January 4, 2011 by mac Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ThunderIdeal Posted January 4, 2011 ^ sounds like a good offer i bet if your boot wasn't hidden by the windows logo it would be getting stuck after, from memory, mup.sys (?) massively common problem, and as many sufferers as there are, there are nearly as many causes/solutions (or lack of solution). always best to google these things to find a working answer on a geek forum. reinstalling your OS should be a regular thing. however XP is getting damn long in the tooth, windows 7 is excellent and you should use it. PM me if you want to receive some clean software. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ThunderIdeal Posted January 4, 2011 (edited) windows 7 fuck yeh, it really is good, and there isn't much speed difference between it and XP. Edited January 4, 2011 by ThunderIdeal Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mac Posted January 4, 2011 (edited) Gotta dissagree on a few things ThunderIdeal win 7 is far too much like vista as in when you get problems you get big problems if the vista win 7 repair cant work out whats going on or you get a corrupt registry Xp is a dream for most techies & pc literate users to get up & running again (with as you said a few searches of forums), XP repair console & OS repair is your friend Oh & if ya wanna use the full pro or ultimate versions of vista & 7 with areo u need a good duel core & graphics card + plenty of memory to spare when XP will happily run on shit onboard graphics & 512mb of ram Edited January 4, 2011 by mac Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ThunderIdeal Posted January 4, 2011 you're clearly biased because you have to repair everyones kaput machines all day 7 is a dream to install, set up networks, has pretty good compatability, fast, it may have the same guts as vista but for the end user there is no comparison. but hey i love xp, i had the boot disc stripped down and customised so it would install unattended with my choice of settings (including half of the services disabled), i do miss that speed www.nliteos.com Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
zelly Posted January 4, 2011 Download http://www.knoppix.net/ Use it to save your photos and other documents to an external harddrive Throw laptop away buy a mac fuc yes. Got a mac powerbook for xmas. installed parallels desktop 6 & then xp pro into a virtual machine now i run all my windoze crap on a mac. lets see a windoze machine run mac stuff. Ha! windoze is sucha big effing joke. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Evil Genius Posted January 4, 2011 Can you access the Bios? You could try to repair the BOOTCFG. Plus if you have the windows disk, you can try to start from the disk and repair the installation of windows without formatting the volume. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Blood Trance Fusion Posted January 4, 2011 windows 7 fuck yeh, it really is good, and there isn't much speed difference between it and XP. The speed difference is huge and if the laptop came with XP pre-installed, there's a reason why! It either came out before 7 (not powerful enough) or the builder decided against putting 7 on it (also not powerful enough). XP will run happily on a Pentium 3. 7 will be a nightmare on a Pentium 4. If speed or money is important use a Linux distribution; Ubuntu for people new to Linux, of course. If you hate having money, get a Macintosh. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
IceCube Posted January 5, 2011 Press f8 when turning on the pc and select "disable automatic reboot ...", can't remember what it says. You should get an error message. Also try safe mode to save your data Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bℓσωηG Posted January 5, 2011 Okay i tried tapping f8 and that allows me to get into safe mode, but then it does the same thing in safe mode , reboots over and over. I also changed to last known good configuration ,the Windows XP loading screen appears. I wait several seconds, and then a blue screen appears for a fraction of a second, and then the monitor goes black and the computer restarts...I don't have time to read what the blue screen says. Mac i'll PM you ,cheers for the help. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
IceCube Posted January 5, 2011 Okay i tried tapping f8 and that allows me to get into safe mode, but then it does the same thing in safe mode , reboots over and over. I also changed to last known good configuration ,the Windows XP loading screen appears. I wait several seconds, and then a blue screen appears for a fraction of a second, and then the monitor goes black and the computer restarts...I don't have time to read what the blue screen says. Mac i'll PM you ,cheers for the help. Yeah if you can select the option not to automatically reboot the blue screen will stay on and we can google the error :D Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bℓσωηG Posted January 5, 2011 Yeah if you can select the option not to automatically reboot the blue screen will stay on and we can google the error :D Is this what i need? Technical information: *** STOP: 0X0000008E (0XC0000005,0X805A49D,0XB8346964,0X00000000) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
IceCube Posted January 5, 2011 (edited) From just having a Google most of the 0X0000008E errors are caused by faulty hardware such as RAM. They can also be caused by crucial windows files being messed up. The best way to get your data if you can't go into safe mode is to get a linux live CD like ubuntu, back up all the data. You should also be able to run a program called memtest and test your RAM. If you have your windows XP disc, put it in, boot from it and do a repair of windows. This should fix it. If you boot from the livecd, navigate to the minidump folder and post the dump (C:\Windows\Minidump\Minidump.dmp). This will tell you exactly what the error is (your computer makes this file before it reboots when there is a blue screen). Edited January 5, 2011 by IceCube Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Evil Genius Posted January 5, 2011 (edited) Download and burn the memtest Iso and boot from that cd. If you have a defect RAM, this disc will be able to find the cause. Edited January 5, 2011 by Evil Genius Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bℓσωηG Posted January 5, 2011 Where can i download this CD? i have not the windows XP disc... im pretty sure this all started when a picture was added to my laptop , thanks for your help guys , im not very tech saavy lol Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
IceCube Posted January 5, 2011 Where can i download this CD? i have not the windows XP disc... im pretty sure this all started when a picture was added to my laptop , thanks for your help guys , im not very tech saavy lol http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download Yeah there is also a list of viruses that cause this error as well, but you won't know more until you read the minidump. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mac Posted January 5, 2011 (edited) if its XP pro see if it has a recovery console option if so log into the windows installation by pressing 1 , then when it prompts for a admin password just hit enter first type bootfix & prompt Y to write a new boot sector then once that is done you can also type chkdsk /f & let it run a disk check once thats done type Exit & reboot let us know if she still has the same problem looks like a hardware or driver issue & is fixable if its XP home you need a home disk to do a OS repair if pro u need a pro disk if above didnt work try to get a xp home or pro service pack 2 disk from torrent reactor to repair the OS without data loss Edited January 5, 2011 by mac Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Darklight Posted January 5, 2011 If speed or money is important use a Linux distribution; Ubuntu for people new to Linux, of course. Ubuntu rocks! Not very helpful I know, but true nonetheless, for this Linux noob If you think it's a virus then boot Puppy Linux from a USB and use F-Prot to do a basic check. While yer there, grab your data http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview%20and%20Getting%20Started.htm Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bℓσωηG Posted January 5, 2011 (edited) OS is operations system yeah? it said operations system not found , lol im confused, im trying, its xp home, its pretty old... whats a floppy drive? gawd this is to hard puppy linux ey? i could try what you said darklight thanks Edited January 5, 2011 by blowng Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Darklight Posted January 5, 2011 (edited) puppy linux ey? i could try what you said darklight thanks Cool, let us know how it goes I've installed Puppy from CD onto a couple of old machines for mates. Easy. Superfast too, even on really old hardware. Just make sure you have the BIOS sorted at startup so you can boot from CD or USB ( in case you didn't know, the BIOS is the bit that boots first before whatever operating system like Win you have installed ) I'm no computer literate, but I'm starting to rebel against all this ridiculous forced hardware upgrading every few years so we can load whatever the latest version of software is. Chucking computers out for this reason isn't doing the environment any favours. Linux and Open Source solve a lot of these problems at this point and again at this point are not virus targets for most end users. So you aren't slowing shit down running antivurus software and mightn't have to do that for a long time Edited January 5, 2011 by Darklight Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
