This shutdown was initiated by NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM

Powered up my PC today and got the following dialog box as ther PC was going hrough the boot up process. "The system is shutting down. Please save all work in progress and log off. Any unsaved changes will be lost. This shutdown was initiated by NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. The system process C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\SERVICES.EXE terminated unexpectedly with status code 128. The system will shut down and restart." At that point the system does not get to the login screen and shuts down then restarts. I used another PC and found information on Microsoft's web site. However I can't get started in safe mode as the Microsoft article indicates because I get the same NT Authority message, but this time after several seconds login screen appears. Tried loggin in but shortly after the system shutdown and restarted. Came across another posting that suggested to bring up task manager as soon as you login, in Safe mode. However, before Safe Mode is fully loaded the system times out and reboots so I never get task manger up. Any ideas?

This is a "could be"nasty infection . Please post this problem in the Malware Removal Forum and they will probably fix you up with some downloads to place on a CD that you can run on that machine. They'll probably be giving you more alternatives than I would have, since they are the experts. In the meantime, Hardware and Heat can be the culprit. Open up the side of the tower case. Make sure the CPU Heatsink Fan starts running the very instant that you power up the machine. If it does not start spinning instantly, shut the machine down. Replace that HeatSink Fan, because the CPU is relying on being cools from the instant of startup and can get damaged pretty quickly. I'm still betting on Blaster or Sasser, for which there are good tools to run removals. Post over in Malware Removal for Expert advice. Best Regards

Thanks for the response I posted this in Malware Removal