I turned my Computer on one day, and then two seconds later it restarted itself, then 3 seconds later it would restart itself, and went a little further each restart until it got to the log in screen, then it would be okay from there ever since then (which was like 1 1/2 months ago). I thought I had some sort of virus on my computer that was undetectable, and as well I was running out of disk space so I decided to Format my computer with my Windows XP disk, it did its typical restarting thing, and so I set it to boot from CD and it kept restarting,, getting further and further. I deleted the partioned space, then went to install Windows and went through the first progress bar which took approx. 1 hour. My computer continued this restarting spree until it reached the first progress bar, than it was okay, until the one after the next progress bar, Where it starts copying the files. It starts copying the files, but then will restart at either 11%, 39% or 78%. And it doesn't keep getting further and further like it used to, it randomly picks which one to restart at. It gets rather annoying and since Windows XP never completed installing and doesn't seem like it will ever, I can't access anything on the computer until it does. Please someone help me I can't send computer specs or any specific info since i can't access my computer.

Please help..

twilcox

How old is your computer? It sounds like you have a bad hard drive, or at least one that's dying. Even when trying to boot from a Windows CD and install Windows, it has to access your hard drive. My recommendation would be to pick up a new hard drive and install it on your computer.

Jonni619

But if that isn't the solution, then I'd be wasting my money. It's not too old, I'd say 3 years. Is there a way to find out if it is guaranteed the Hard Drive?

JBeaucaire

It's the hard drive. Putting in a new one will also require you to reinstall on the drive, so you're effectively going to end up with a brand new factory fresh PC in terms of performance. This will solve your issue. You will be happy.

Scleros

3-5 years of everyday use is expected life of a drive. You can download a diagnostic utility from the drive manufacturer's website, place on a bootable floppy (or other removable device), and check the drive. For intermittent errors, I normally run a drive exerciser like Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test for 24 hours or better.

If drive checks out OK, other potential suspects include overheating (dust covering heatsinks, fan failure, etc.), an unstable power supply, bad memory, bad drive controller (motherboard), and any other device connected to same cable as the hard drive. To isolate, disconnect everything else and only boot with device to be tested and minimum RAM and video, etc.

twilcox

If you think about it, not really. Even if it turns out your hard drive is okay, there's really no such thing as too much hard drive space.