Toshiba Laptop restarts once windows loads

[solsen300]

I have a toshiba laptop that restarts as soon as the desktop shows up. When I hit F8 and select last know good configuration is starts up fine and I'm able to use it for any amount of time. But, if I restart it again, it goes back to restarting once the desktop comes up.

It is a Toshiba Satellite A205-ss855 running Vista.

 

[MindoverMaster]

Don't restart it? j/k

Did you install anything before this started happening?

Try running a malware scan. Malwarebytes is the recommended. Might want to run a virus scan, too.

 

[solsen300]

installed and ran malewarebytes, restarted to completely remove threats and it restarted again at the desktop

 

[MindoverMaster]

Did you install anything before this started happening?

Run -> msconfig. Go to the startup tab. Anything you are not familiar with, uncheck it. Restart after changes.

 

[solsen300]

I disabled everything in there except for the things in system32 and still no luck.

 

[solsen300]

So I created another user and when it gets to the screen to select a user,

1) if I let it sit there for a few seconds it restarts
2) if I select the old user it says the below and then restarts
the group policy failed the logon
the media is write protected
3) if I select the new user it says the belwo and then restarts
the user profile service failed the logon
your profile cannot be loaded

 

[santaclaws]

It's a virus, I'm pretty sure. Format C: and reinstall Windows if you can't identify and eliminate the virus by other means.

 

[solsen300]

wiped the hard drive and reinstalled vista and it works fine now. Thanks!