Windows XP Home Edition Reboot Loop

[Cortland]

My mothers XP Home Edition is looping. For about two weeks you could go into the Bios and choose to load from hard drive. We couldn't figure out why that was happening. Today it decided that wasn't enough. It keeps coming up with the following error message:

STOP: c0000269 {Illegal System DLL Relocation}
The system DLL kernel32.dll was relocated in memory. The application will not run properly.
The relocation occurred because the DLL C:\WINDOWS\system32\GDI32.dll occupied an address range reserved for window system DLLs. The vendor supplying the DLL shou %s %s

We've tried reinstalling from the disk, I don't remember what that did but we got nowhere. Theres a whole list of steps involving gdi32.dll to replace it and then we're supposed to reboot. That didn't work either. So ya help? Please. I'm lost.

 

[setishock]

Did you do a repair install or did you wipe the drive and do a clean install?
What caused it was an application(program) wants to occupy the same memory locations the system does in the ram. If there's a conflict like that the OS will halt the system. Sounds like a poorly written program or maybe even a virus.

 

[Cortland]

Repair install. She doesn't want to lose all her files. I tried to get her to back up regularly but she won't. Now she stands to lose all her finical records, ancestry files and family photos. I'm trying to find a way around that.

 

[JackPanzer]

Repair install. She doesn't want to lose all her files. I tried to get her to back up regularly but she won't. Now she stands to lose all her finical records, ancestry files and family photos. I'm trying to find a way around that.

This may sound like one of those cheap solutions that you may find googling for a few minutes, but my advice is:

- Install a GNU/Linux distribution in a pendrive to boot from there
- Boot from the pendrive with the distro
- From that system you can access all your data and save it in DVD or in another storage unit
- After saving everything make a clean install of Windows

By the way, pay attention in something: There are a variety of reasons why WinXP can end with a boot loop, the most common of all are the viruses and malware (that's why you should try the LiveCD/Pendrive idea), and the worst scenario possible is a hardware issue.

Start creating a booting media with a GNU/Linux distribution (Ubuntu, Debian, OpenSuSE, Mageia, Linux Mint...) and save all the information you can.

Good luck dealing with this little problem.