Just... great

[jeriendhal]

After a couple of times where it spontaneously rebooted, now the older computer is refusing to boot up, finding some kind of error before it reaches the main Windows screen. Attempting to reboot in Safe Mode has the same result. I don't know if it's the hard drive or the main processor. Anyone have a clue so i know what to replace?

Comments

[kodi]

Some things you might try:
Unplug every device except a keyboard.
Turn off Plug'N'Play support in the BIOS.
Try booting a Linux bootable CD and see if it (a) dies and (b) if so, gives a more enlightening error report.

[elusivetiger.livejournal.com]

Gotta give us the exact error in question. ;)

Is it coming from the BIOS (before the OS even starts to load), or early on in the Windows startup process (I guess you even being able to try Safe Mode answers that, and it's occurring during Windows' start up, unless even getting that far is intermittent).What's the exact text of the error?

Depending on the error and when you're seeing it, there's a good chance it's just a gummed-up Windows install, in which case it's often easier to just reinstall the OS (not hard at all, just a bit time-consuming).

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

It begins booting up Windows then it crashes, so i don't think it's the BIOS

[estokien.livejournal.com]

If it is starting up OK, but crashing before it pulls up Windows it is usually that the Windows boot files have gotten corrupted from the crashes. Depending on the Windows version, you can usually boot from the Windows CD, and go into recovery mode or the like. Basically reinstalling the files on the boot sector. If you can't recover, you may need to reinstall windows. Once Windows is booting again, scan your hard drives for damage, if you get a lot of bad sectors you will want to get a new hard drive and copy your data to it.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Given I don't even have the boot disc anymore (it's windows 95) i'll probably end up getting Windows 7. ah well.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

Knowing what the error message says would help. What makes you think the hard drive or the processor is the issue? Do you have reason to think this is a hardware problem rather than a software problem? Most Windows boot failures are software issues rather than hardware.

Hard drive problems generally don't cause spontaneous reboots unless Windows is set to automatically reboot when it has a problem. (Some versions of Windows install that way by default, so having it set that way is fairly common.) Do you know whether that option is on or off? If it is on, the rebooting doesn't tell you much of anything other than that something is wrong. If it is off, rebooting is often a symptom of either power supply problems or overheating. If the processor gets overheated too much, it can be damaged leading to problems even when not overheated.