Computer wont stop rebooting

[BountyKilla]

Yesterday I just got my third dell 2001fp into my custom Amd opteron pc, 2g ram and 400 gig harddrive. When I was twelve tabling it froze and then eventually went into a never ending loop of rebooting and when its about to hit the main screen after the windows boot it goes to a blue screen and then reboots. I know theres alot of variables so if theres something I havent said that could be helpful in figuring this out please let me know. I think it may be the harddrive. Help me please ! There is a reward of $50 for anyone that helps me solve this.

[BiPolar_Nut]

There have been viruses lately that cause a blue-screen reboot cycle. That's only one of several possibilities tho.

Can you boot to safe mode?

Why is it you suspect your hard drive? Do you have another computer you can place that hard drive in as a slave to check it for errors?

[cgwahl]

See if you can get into safe mode.

Keep hitting F8 while its booting till you get the option.

Otherwise maybe see if you can do a checkdisk. If you can't start it in safemode then stick in the windows cd and go to recovery console.

type
chkdsk c: /r

Or do the above and slave then thing then check it.

[Meech]

If you can get into safe mode, right click on my computer -- choose properties. Advanced tab, click startup & recovery settings. Unclick "Automatically restart".

This will stop the reboot cycle, but it won't fix your problem. What's the error on the blue screen?

[baumer]

If you have your XP cd handy you could do a quick reinstall.

Just boot the computer with the XP CD in your CD-Rom, it should boot off the CD and you can go through the menus to do a repair installation.

Should get you up and running to scan for viruses and other things.

[Trainwreck]

Yup, what's the stop code on the Blue Screen of Death, and any other specific file name mentioned in the BSOD screen? Google the stop code...

I suspect perhaps his Power Supply has gone bad or maybe a card or RAM have slide out of it's slot slightly, I'd reseat all cards/RAM and also look in case for fans no longer spinning, need cleaned?

Mobo could have went belly up as well.

BK, you overclocking or change ANYTHING before this started?

[BountyKilla]

Hey guys thanks for responding. The machine is not overlocked and cannot go into safe mode. All it does when that happens is tries to load up a bunch of drivers and then freezes.

[BountyKilla]

OK, update, I tried formattign and installing windows xp and i got an error: Cannot format and it says disk may be damaged. Methinks I need a new harddrive goddamnit. Its like 6 months old, is this normal ?

[BiPolar_Nut]

variance [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Modern hard drives suck...they *will* break, just a matter of when. I usually claim 8-12 months as a lower range for most, and 24-36 months max (again, in general). Some die in 2 months, some might actually make it 4-5 yrs....apparently you got one slightly south of my usual claimed lifespan. Bummer.

On a + note, it should still be in warranty.

Go to the hd manufacturer's website and download any diagnostic utility they have for your model (I'm assuming you have another computer to do this on since you can still post queations)

Some manufactureres have diag utilities (run from a boot floppy) and require error codes before they'll issue an RMA#.

It's also possible your mobo is toast and your hd is fine....but odds are the hd crapped out on ya. Might be worth tossing it in another computer to try to format, or tossing it in another computer and using the manufacturers low-level format utility to attempt a fix. That only helps rarely in my experience tho.

(Edited about 5 times for typos)

[BountyKilla]

Its a custom pc that was built for me by a friend. Im gonna try and put a hard drive from my old computer into the broken one. It sucks cause the hd that presumably died is 300gb BAH. Thanks for all your posts guys/girls.