Computer just keeps rebooting
Hi folks,
Great forum, by the way. I've been doing a lot of reading on here, but haven't been able to resolve my problem.
I'm trying to fix my parents' 5-year-old Dell desktop. They got the "Antivirus Live" virus recently, and it was preventing them from using their computer normally. They kept getting popups, misdirected webpages, fake antivirus windows, etc. After a few days, it wouldn't even let them log on anymore. They would sign into the computer, it would accept the login, and then log them off immediately.
I took their computer and hooked up their harddrive as a slave in one of my older computers. I backed up their data and then formatted the drive, and then reinstalled windows XP. When I put it back into their computer, I can't get the computer to even boot anymore. It shows the Dell screen (where you can enter setup if you want), and then it asks if you want XP professional or home. When you make a selection it then gives you the menu for "Safe Mode, Safe Mode with networking", etc. No matter what you pick, it then seems to reboot and give you the Dell screen again.
I've tried every scenario under that Safe Mode menu. I've also hit F8 as it was booting and it gave me a few other options, all of which have failed, too. I turned off the "reboot when it sees an error", and then I get a bluescreen and it just stops there. I'm sure you're all familiar with that screen
I've read a few posts on here about it possibly being the PSU. I came across another PSU and hooked it up, but still get the same problem. I've also stripped the computer down to its bare bones, but it's still happening. I unplugged the floppy drive and the CD-Roms, I tried different RAM setups, and finally just kept one piece of RAM in there (512KB I think). I've also disconnected any of the other pieces that aren't needed, and I'm still in the same boat.
Oh, and one more thing to add to this novel. If I hook up a different harddrive that works in my other computer, it still does the same thing (continual reboot).
Before I throw the computer out of the window, can you think of anything else to try? Sorry for such a long post, but I wanted to give you as much background as possible.
Thanks!
Great forum, by the way. I've been doing a lot of reading on here, but haven't been able to resolve my problem.
I'm trying to fix my parents' 5-year-old Dell desktop. They got the "Antivirus Live" virus recently, and it was preventing them from using their computer normally. They kept getting popups, misdirected webpages, fake antivirus windows, etc. After a few days, it wouldn't even let them log on anymore. They would sign into the computer, it would accept the login, and then log them off immediately.
I took their computer and hooked up their harddrive as a slave in one of my older computers. I backed up their data and then formatted the drive, and then reinstalled windows XP. When I put it back into their computer, I can't get the computer to even boot anymore. It shows the Dell screen (where you can enter setup if you want), and then it asks if you want XP professional or home. When you make a selection it then gives you the menu for "Safe Mode, Safe Mode with networking", etc. No matter what you pick, it then seems to reboot and give you the Dell screen again.
I've tried every scenario under that Safe Mode menu. I've also hit F8 as it was booting and it gave me a few other options, all of which have failed, too. I turned off the "reboot when it sees an error", and then I get a bluescreen and it just stops there. I'm sure you're all familiar with that screen
I've read a few posts on here about it possibly being the PSU. I came across another PSU and hooked it up, but still get the same problem. I've also stripped the computer down to its bare bones, but it's still happening. I unplugged the floppy drive and the CD-Roms, I tried different RAM setups, and finally just kept one piece of RAM in there (512KB I think). I've also disconnected any of the other pieces that aren't needed, and I'm still in the same boat.
Oh, and one more thing to add to this novel. If I hook up a different harddrive that works in my other computer, it still does the same thing (continual reboot).
Before I throw the computer out of the window, can you think of anything else to try? Sorry for such a long post, but I wanted to give you as much background as possible.
Thanks!
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Comments
First, is whats on the hard drive valuable? Files, pictures, old tax documents, stuff that needs saving? If no, or if its backed up somewhere the easy solution is to just find your dell restoration CD, or partition on your drive (depends on the system vintage), and just restore the system, run windows update when finished and be done with it. You will kill two birds with one stone, fixing the boot record, while getting rid of the virus.
Now, if there are critical files that need saving first, you might be able to just fix the master boot record by following the steps here first.
I'm finding more and more that malwarebytes is the best tool for finding and destroying viruses after they hit your system. You will want to try to remove the virus with that once your fix your boot record.
You are correct...I used a Windows XP disc to reinstall the OS and not the Dell restore cd. For some reason, with the HDD and the CD-ROM installed on the "sick" computer, it would never let me boot to the cd-rom drive with either the restore disc or the WinXP disc in the drive. Only when I put the HDD into another old computer was I able to boot to the CD-ROM and reinstall windows with the WinXP disc. When I used the restore CD in the other computer (which I attempted first) and booted to CD, it just wouldn't work. I will try again and see what happens.
I'm pretty sure I did trying fixing the MBR. I remember reading somewhere (I can't remember where) something along the lines of 8 steps to fixing your MBR. It seemed to help a little, but I still had the same problem afterwards. I think it called for deleting your boot.ini first, then running chkdsk, and then fixing the mbr.
Originally I was trying to malwarebytes when we were able to actually log into the computer, but eventually the virus stopped us from using it. Later on when the infected HDD was hooked up to the other computer as a slave, I kept running MWB against it, and was able to find and delete problems, but I don't think it was finding all of the problems (especially in the registry).
Thanks for the replies!
have a look in the bios and make sure that CD is the first boot device. then use your dell restore cd to completely wipe and re-install your PC. You will loose any information that has not been backed up though (though you did say you have backed up their data)
Having thought about it, this could also be a problem. If you install windows on a PC with then change the motherboard you often have to re-install windows anyway. however follow the steps in my previous post and see how you get on.
Yep, I did check the settings in the BIOS and have edited them to make the computer boot from the CD-ROM. I will give it another try, though, and see what happens so I can give you a more specific answer.