I'm new here (referred by a friend) and I don't know if this has been posted before. But I'm having a problem with my computer where it will only go to the splash screen and then it will automatically reboot. I've tried starting with last known good configs, with command prompt, and boot normally, all to no avail. I've even tried booting from the cd and I was going to run the recovery console, but I can't get the cd to boot. All it does is sometimes give me a line like "error on boot from CD enter disk and press enter." From what I've read online it appears to be some kind of worm. I read something about resetting the cmos to clear it up but im not entirely sure on how to do that and I don't know if it would even help in my situation. I cant read the error message it gives me either. When it goes to restart it flashes the error up for less than a half a second. I'm not really worried about reinstalling windows (which I can't even get to that option) but if theres a way around it, I would prefer that. I had this problem on one computer, but I tried to connect the hard drive from that computer to another to see if I could get some data from it and maybe fix it, I might have infected my other computer. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

are you getting a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) and then a restart? Do you have a different boot CD you can try in case the cd you have is bad or corupt?

Yes, I get a blue error screen for less than half a second before it reboots. I might have another. But what can I do if that doesnt work?

We may be able to recover it if we can read what the BSOD is trying to tell us is causing the error. We can stop windows from automatically rebooting if we can change the registry on that computer. See if you can load up BartPE or your fav one and mount to the existing windows. Once you do that edit the registry. Here is what you need to change:

Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

Key: \SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control

Name: CrashControl

Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 0 Disable automatic reboot

Value: 1 Enable automatic reboot

Related: Q174630 - Windows NT Restarts Continuously with Blue Screen.

What exactly is BartPE? I'll google it in the mean time. But is there any way you could go more in depth into the process or know of a website I can visit? Like I said I'll google it until/if you can give me some more info.

EDIT*: Ok I've googled BartPE and I think I get what I need to do. After I get the error code do I just need to post it here?

Edited January 17, 200818 yr by swirly

I use ERD Commander from Winternals, it works good

sure post it here and one of us can get to it and see if we can help

Edited January 18, 200818 yr by firefoxthebomb

I haven't had a chance to make my boot disc apparatus with BartPE (No free time and limited time on the computer). But ERD Commander has been taken over by Microsoft and is no longer available for download apparently. But if I can't boot from a cd (as far as I know) how would I be able to mount the Bart disc?

Could be a hardware problem if you can't boot from any cd. might try reducing machine to minimum config and see what happens then when booting from hard drive of cd.

What exactly do you mean by manual config?

"Minimum" config.

Reduce the hardware configuration to the minimum number of components required to boot. I.E. Motherboard, processor, 1-2 stick(s) of memory, video, hard drive, keyboard.

Some of that Microsoft information isn't very helpful!

The pagefile is NOT required to be the same size as the RAM or bigger!

huh?

Well I don't see how reducing to minimum config will help to be honest. I mean I think either my disc is corrupt or its just the virus acting up. But is there some physical way to reformat it? At this point I'm not worried about erasing what I have on there. I have my music on my zune and can copy it back to my hard drive. I just want my computer back. I guess I'll try to do the bart PE thing and if that doesn't work I think I may have a spare hard drive somewhere and I'll hook up the other as a slave and reformat it that way because the virus/worm only seems to take effect after the computer has been restarted or been turned off for a while.