Massive XP rebooting problem
 

Here's My (homebuilt) system:
AMD Athlon XP2000 on a VIA motherboard
GeForce 4 (64m)
Audigy 1
1 G Corsair DDR PC3200 RAM
1 LG DVD +-R/RW RAM CD r/rw/rom
1 CD r/rw/rom
1 WD 80 G HD (slave)
1 SeaGate 200 G HD (master)
XP Pro (OEM)

(I purchased the Seagate, the ram, and XP last week from newegg)


Last night, when I came back to my room, there was an error message on my screen that said that trillian had to close because of a fatal error, and asking if I wanted to send an error report.
I clicked 'Don't Send' and my computer restarted. as I watched, it went thru the Post sequence, and as the XP logo flashed on the screen, it restarted. every time since, it has restarted either right before the XP logo flashes, or right as it does. I have tried booting from the XP install cd, but it gives me error code 7 and says that a file is not found. the only thing that has done anything at all is I have tried to boot off a norton systemworks 2002 cd, which has worked, but when I try to switch drives, it says that 'path or drive not found'.

please, I really need this computer, and I would like to save the data on it, I have about 60 g of stuff that I haven't backed up yet (just got the DVD r-s in the last couple of days and haven't had time yet.) (yes, I'm pathetic)

Try to boot up in Safe Mode. See if that works. Then we can go from there.

Whether you end up fixing this problem without losing your data or not, I would definitely partition the hard drive into two different drives, so if Windows goes FUBAR you can just format the drive and have your other stuff saved on the other drive.

You can reinstall Windows from the CD without formatting. As long as the registry is not corrupt, you won't have to reinstall everything. And if the registry is corrupt, at least you will still have your data.

I have tried booting up in safe mode. the same thing happens.
and I do have the HD partitioned.


Yes. I know. I've tried this. As I said, when I try to load the XP install cd, I get error message//code 7 and it tells me that a required file is not found. this is when I'm trying to boot off the cd.

from google'ing the error code:

<a href="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;812580&Product=winxp">solution #1</a>?

<a href="http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=330181">solution #2</a>?

hopefully that helps.

Solution 2 did it, thanks. I am now running w/ my old 256mg chip. *sigh*
It's so hard to go back to sucking after tasting True Speed.