Vista continues to reset at startup

[x-treme]

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Hello All,

I have had an ongoing issue which I am finally asking for help with.

Several weeks ago I turned on my laptop and I was unable to get passed my Dell bootup screen without it reseting. Needless to say, I fixed the issue by running the vista cd and clicking 'repair starup', which it did. After a few days, the issue would come back and I would simply 'repair startup' and i'd be back in business.

I was tired of constantly doing this so I decided to reformat. After installation of a fresh copy, I installed Itunes, MSN, and firefox. I rebooted. I then ran windows update (all 49 new ones required) and installed those as well. After I restarted to update the configuration I was faced with a system32 error asking me to 'configure to previous working settings', which I reluctantly did. Unfortunately, immediately after I reseted the machine again I can not pass the microsof logo which indicates it's loading the operating system without the system reseting. I ran windows startup repair once again hoping it would fix things and it said it could not fix the registry.

I have now ran the OS in safemode, installed several virus scanners and found nothing.

What the heck is going on? What else can I do to repair this?

 

[KSoD]

It sounds as if something installed is corrupting the Registry. I would lean towards iTunes as it has never really worked right with Windows.

Sadly there is no repair option with Vista. So unless you can use the Vista DVD and the Restore ability it has you will be stuck formating again.

 

[x-treme]

Thanks, so if Itunes is installed, it will always cause a problem, regardless of when the updates were installed?

Well, I've just noticed something new.
The automatic restart occurs only when I click 'restart', because after I powered off the pc and shut down the OS, I was able to load the OS just fine upon powering it back up. When running, I tested it again - I clicked shutdown and it then powered on and OS loaded. When running, I simply restarted and the consistent cycle of reseting occurred. So this only happens when I do a restart and not a manual reboot.

 

[KSoD]

I am not saying that iTunes will always cause a problem. Many people use it with no issues at all. It just that iTunes has caused issues in the past that is why i blame that over Firefox or MSN.

So your restart is what is corrupted not the system. Since you can shut down just not restart. Interesting.

It could be driver related. Have you updated your drivers and have you isntalled Vista SP1 yet?