Re-boot Loop

I am looking at a computer (Compaq Presario) for a friend - it has Windows XP Home and is stuck in a re-boot loop, and won't recognzie restore disk, it says (and I've tried 3 of them, including the one made from that computer) that they are a non-system disk. Out of desperation I finally put in a Windows ME floppy - it will boot from that to the DOS prompt A:, and that it needs to be checked for viruses . I boot it as CD Drive accessable, but when I put a CD in the D: drive, it says it cannot run it Abort, Retry, Fail. Also says the FAT sector is bad. Any advice? (besides reformatting the whole thing and starting over - which I cannot do as it did not come with windows disks.)

Sorry to hear about your friends computer trouble. Nothing like a nice bowl of boot-loops to brighten your day

From what you have discribed it sure sounds like you may have a hardware issue or two. I believe its going to be either the memory or the hard drive.
There are several ways to go about this.

But most of all any repair may cause full or partial data loss. If this computer has data that cannot be lost seek backup services before attempting any of these suggestions.


1. The computer is in a warranty period (less than one year old) take it to a authorized repair center.

2. Take it to a Computer Tech/Guru/shop and have them run a diagnostic on it. From there they most likely will have or can aquire the pieces parts necessary to effect a repair. (will cost you some money, I expect in the range of 50-60 bucks to get a answer)

3. Depending on your own confidence or skill level and access to parts try replacing known good with suspected bad. ie: Take out the hard drive and replace with a known good one and try restoring with the (very important) disks that came with the machine. (I will explain later in this post)
If that fails, then remove all the memory modules except one and try again. If that fails, remove that one and replace with one you removed. (Rare that all modules fail at the same time) You are bound to find the problem.

4. Again based on your confidence or skill level, aquire a diagnostic disk from the maker of your hard drive, (maxtor, seagate, samsung ect) and run that. Same thing for testing memory, there is a well know tester called "memtest86". This does require some exposure to using these tools or the time to learn how to use them.

Now a bit about the "improper system disk" error you get. Without going really technical on this, HP and a number of oem makers of computers to keep you from taking the os disks and running to any old machine and installing it have come up with a scheme. The disks you get are not true installation disks, they are more of a image or copy of a OS that is put in place. This scheme includes that a bit of information on the disks has to match a bit of information on the motherboard and the harddrive. A term for this is called a Tattoo or Tatooing or cpc dmi. If the information does not match you will get that error.

Usually the installation of a new harddrive in one of these machines does not kickoff this error and long as the motherboard information will match. The Tattoo information will get written on the new harddrive in the restore process. Sometime when using a refurbished drive the information is not removed and will kick off the "improper system disk" error. You may even run into activation issues if it doesnt go properly.

So ok what is the fix for that? There are a number of tools and software only a authorized repair center has to correct this. One of the trade offs for OEM vs Custom built. The oem folks do not make all tools and drivers availible to the general public.

What about getting the right restore cd's? Most oem companies will sell you a set for around 25 dollars, or if you are lucky a authorized service center can restore the computer from disk they might have in there libraries.

Regards and Good luck

Kazzoo

ok guess I'll have to tell them that I cannot fix it. It did come with it's own restore disk for that computer. Unfortunately on it I get the same "system error". Guess I'm at an end on this one unless I can find a virus checker that will fit on a floppy.

Right, which leads me to believe you have a possible hardware fault. Your not even getting to the part where the disk is being checked. I am betting you are getting a post and a splash screen. Malware and/or virus rarely puts the computer into boot-loops in my experience. Hardware and corrupted software/drivers will. Once you clear yourself of hardware faults, then you can tackle any software issues. There are several ways to handle that as well. Like booting into safe mode, or enabling last known good configurations, restore to a earlier date and time and so forth. If you would like to try, tap the f8 key on boot and select "disable automatic restart on error" this might give you a chance to see any blue screens windows is reporting. Most of the time they are not real useful but might give you an insight to where windows is hanging up. Most HP/compaq computers will with f10 tapped at boot/splash screen will put you into a system restore function. (called a recovery partition) Pants before shoes, clear the hardware issues before the software ones. In the end it is truely your call on how you should proceed. Regards Kazzoo If all you have is a hammer, everything must be a nail……

ok, thank you. Probably hard drive……do not have the option to disable automatic restart on error with the F8 kkey, but I do have option to "enable boot logging" - which shows all my drivers loading………on a partion (1). It looks to me like some person partitioned this hard drive and didn't make it big enough to load windows, possibly? and f10 doesn't work either, unfortunately. Oh well, I'm not charging these people, just thought I might be able to take a gander at it and maybe possibly fix it. And in the process i've learned some stuff, lol. Thanks again!