XP constantly restarts at boot, before the login screen

[Shazzbot]

I currently have a Dell Dimension 4400 and I shut it down one night with no problems. The next morning I move to restart it but as it starts up it enters the "we're sorry for the inconvenience" screen and gives the boot options (safe mode, last known good, normally, etc.), I select "normally". At the XP loading screen the computer restarts and brings me back to that same screen of options. I then try to boot off a cd (switched the boot order and what not) but instead of booting off the cd it brought me right back to the same "we're sorry for the inconvenience" screen so I'm unable to boot off a cd to run a repair or reinstall windows. Any idea what might be causing this? The Dell guy said it could be the hard drive but I wanted a second opinion.

Windows XP home edition sp2
P4 1.6GHz
768mb ram
GeForce4 MX 440 128mb
Sound Blaster Live value

That's about all the information I can give.

 

[Half Evil]

First, what you can try booting it into safe mode. I have had bad experiences with 'last known good configuration' so I dont reccomend that.

Can you boot into safe mode? If not, try opening up the case (with the power turned off) and then taking out the battery on the motherboard. I really think that will have no effect, but you never know. Leave it out for 30 seconds.

After that, take out the 512mb ram and 256mb sticks (I assume?) and if you only have one stick, then just kind of clean and reseat it.

But I had a similar problem. It turned out that I had a conflict in msconfig. I had turned off my Pc for about a week and went on vacation. When I get back I find my computer corrupted etc.

Safemode worked for me, and in safemode I didnt the following

start > run > msconfig > and select 'normal startup'

 

[compguy91]

My parent's old computer had this problem and it turns out that it was because one of the PCI cards had come loose somehow. We pushed them in the slots and the system booted fine. Try doing that and see if it helps. Do you get a blue screen when this happens? I had this happen before on an old PC I had and I couldn't get into safe mode or anything, windows had crashed but I didnt' reinstall it, I just got a new PC because that one was really old.

 

[Shazzbot]

I tried safe mode several times (with command prompt and networking etc.) but it restarts automatically again. The BSoD doesn't show up as I have autorestart at system failure enabled (I'm an idiot). I'll open the case and poke around for a bit. Thanks for the suggestions. Btw ram is 1x512mb and 1x256mb