Cannot boot into windows, Help!

[Izidro]

I am attempting to fix my friend's computer I constructed a few years back, it's an Intel processor on a gigabyte motherboard, etc., although I don't believe this to be a hardware issue.

I checked the bios and everything seems to be in order there, it always boots to the selection screen presenting the safe mode, etc. options.. Regardless of the selection I make, it shows the Windows loading blue thing that moves across in that little box for perhaps 10 seconds, then the system restarts, it will just do that infinitely... I'm thinking of using the windows disk for recovery, but if, perhaps, say I did not have that disk what other possibilities might there be?

 

[devil22]

Probably none (other possibilities.) You'll probably need to do a Repair or Reinstall, either of which require the OS disc.

 

[munkle]

It is probably blue screening and that's why it is restarting. Could be lots of reason why, bad ram, bad video card, bad drivers, bad motherboard. There's an option to turn off automatic restarting but you can't get to windows. You can try a repair, I would run a memtest first just to rule out the memory before trying a repair. If it's not hardware then you will need the os disk.

 

[MacLeod]

My old computer did that very thing just recently. Would restart over and over again. I tinkered with it for a while but never could figure anything out. Ended up just using the XP restore disc and its working like a charm now. Since I had all my pictures and music and crap on the D drive, it left all those alone. The restore disc only wipes the C drive.

 

[tormentum]

if you can get your hands on a BarPE disk or have a copy of WinPE 2.0 or 3.0 on USB stick, try and boot that. It will tell you if the problem is more likely with Windows, or with the hardware.

 

[gimp]

boot into safe mode.
right-click on My Computer -> Properties
Advanced tab -> click Settings under "Startup and Recovery" -> UNcheck "Automatically restart" -> Click OK -> Click OK -> reboot.

see what the BSOD says.

alternatively, I thought in that Advanced boot menu there was an option to boot without automatically rebooting on BSOD

 

[greyhavens49420]

if you can get your hands on a BarPE disk or have a copy of WinPE 2.0 or 3.0 on USB stick, try and boot that. It will tell you if the problem is more likely with Windows, or with the hardware.

I agree with tormentum, the easiest way to determine if it's a Windows issue is to boot to a Live distro of anything and run it for awhile. If nothing overheats or blows up then it's your Windows OS going bonkers and you can move on to troubleshooting windows or just re-installing it.