I have a coworker’s computer that I was asked to fix as a favor, and it has me stumped. I am able to boot up to the logon screen and choose any user there. Then it says it’s loading the user’s settings and poof it reboots. I am even unable to boot into safemode. Any ideas what can be wrong? I don’t have their media or licence key so I can’t do a repair installl.
…You still wrasslin’ with it?
No clue, sorry, but I’ll bump this from page 2 for ya.
How many user accounts are affected? You say it begins to load the user’s settings, then reboots. Did your co-worker pick up some malicious/mischevious malware that is in the start-up programs?
I’m not a Windows specialist, so I can’t pinpoint what startup programs are common to both user accounts and safe-mode.
Since you can boot to the choose a user section, can you add a new user?
Would it be possible to boot from other Windows installation media and troubleshoot the startup files? If not Windows installation media, can you get a minimalist Linux (or BSD) distribution that will let you boot up and mount the disk for troubleshooting. (Don’t flame me, please, I’m not saying switch to Linux. I’m just saying it’s a useful option for troubleshooting a machine that won’t boot.)
Or, buy a copy of Windows and do an upgrade or install.
Here are some links I found on Microsoft’s web site that describe similar problems to yours. Hopefully one of them will help you.
The computer is stuck in a restart loop …
Pop the side off and take a look at the capacitors. Make sure their bottoms are flat and shiny with no bulging or discoloration. (They will look like AA batteries set on end.)