Help! Laptop keeps restarting.

rc28

Hello, I was wondering if anyone could help me.
I turned on my sisters laptop (compaq presario c350ea- xp) and I noticed it was very slow and clunky when I opened internet explorer. It froze and then wouldn't close the program but everything else seemed to work (like start menu etc). I then decided to turn it off (forcefully by holding down the power button). When I went to turn it on again it went straight to the advanced options menu- to start up in safe mode, normal etc. I chose to start up in last known configuration and it then went to the normal xp loading page but then a blue screen flashes with writing on it(too fast for me to read) then the computer restarts by itself and back to the advanced options menu again. So I choose safe mode and the same thing happens again and again and no matter what option I choose the same thing happens again. I've tried taking out the battery and leaving it for a while but that doesn't help at all. The laptop is only six months old so I really don't know what's wrong. BTW yesterday I carried out a routine defragmentaion on it because my sister noticed that it had gotten quite slow on startup. Before it goes to the advanced strtup options menu there is an option to choose setup by pressing F10 so I did that and there was a weird menu I'd never seen before to run a hard drive diagnostic and so on- I did that and it passed but still the laptop restarts whenever I try to get past the AOM. It's a basic laptop with 1gb ram and a core duo processor. I really don't know much about computers so I'd really appreciate if anyone can help me out here.:(

Karoma

Disconnected everything except the AC adaptor+battery.
Try to boot it up and choose Safe Mode.
(If it works: control panel -> system -> advanced -> under Startup & Recovery: Settings... -> Untick Automatically Restart.
The next time it crashes - take a note of the error/BSOD test.)

rc28

Karoma wrote:

Disconnected everything except the AC adaptor+battery.
Try to boot it up and choose Safe Mode.
(If it works: control panel -> system -> advanced -> under Startup & Recovery: Settings... -> Untick Automatically Restart.
The next time it crashes - take a note of the error/BSOD test.)

The thing is, it never gets past that to get to the conrol panel. No matter what option I choose (safe mode etc) it always just restarts and goes around in circles. I'm really worried now that this is a serious problem with the laptop.

Karoma

"If it works"
Is everything disconnected?
Pop in the recovery disc...

rc28

Karoma wrote:

"If it works"
Is everything disconnected?
Pop in the recovery disc...

Yes everything is disconnected. It's my sisters laptop so I dont know where she put her recovery disc(she's on holiday). Is a recovery disc just the original windows xp disc or is it the backed up data? I may have the recovery disc for my other laptop and desktop, would these do?

Karoma

The recovery disc is either just the OS or OS,drivers,applications...
Either way, it will not have backed up data created since installation.

The other recovery discs are unlikely to work. You could probably use a retail disc to perform a Repair

What are the options in that menu when you press F10?

rc28

Karoma wrote:

The recovery disc is either just the OS or OS,drivers,applications...
Either way, it will not have backed up data created since installation.

The other recovery discs are unlikely to work. You could probably use a retail disc to perform a Repair

What are the options in that menu when you press F10?

There are four options across the top of the screen- "main, security, system configuration, diagnostics (hard drive test which i carried out), exit"
I will attach a pic in a minute. It's an odd looking menu-looks really old and basic

rc28

here are two pics of that weird menu:
P1000678 (Large).JPG
P1000679 (Large).JPG

tech

if you do decide to wipe it ensure you have all here data backups, eg Music, e-mail photos word excel docs ....

rc28

Ok Thanks for all your help guys.
My sister came back from holidays today and phoned compaq(hp) support. They gave her lots of instructions over the phone and it ended up having to go to another weird menu I'd never seen before (by repeatedly pressing F11) and she had to completely wipe her hard drive in "recovery". It worked though and the laptop worked after that but it acted like a brand new pc again (having to set windows up again)but unfortunately EVERY programme installed and file saved since bought was lost:(
Can anyone explain why this worked because yesterday, as i said, I ran the hard drive diagnostics and it passed. The tech guy said it could be a few reasons together that caused the problem but TBH I don't think he really knew and when he asked her to wipe the HD he was only hoping it might work (rather than being certain that it would). He said something interesting though- when you defragment a pc for the first time it can really affect the os somehow and he said that if you don't regularly defrag then don't do it at all. Basically he said if you are going to defrag at all do it every month and from the moment you buy it?? He didn't really know at all though and then tryed to blame it on the fact that I had shut it down without clicking on start-shutdown (i held down the power button to turn it off) but I really find this ridiculous- that should not break a new laptop that cost 1000euro and then have to wipe the hard drive! What if she had really important files on it? Luckily she has cd copies of any important stuff on it. This just goes to show how important it is to back up your data because you never know when something like this is going to happen! I am really beginning to hate windows now- anyone know if Ubuntu linux is good-can I run windows and linux on the same computer?