computer keeps rebooting - can't access safe mode

[six00ohm]

Howdy all:

So I've encountered this strange problem. I was connecting an external USB drive to my computer, it's a drive I've used hundreds of times before. When I connected it to the computer, the system crashed. When I went to restart the computer the system would show my emachines splash page, then shut down, restart, show the splash page the shut down...again and again.

I've tried restarting in Safe Mode. I get to the screen giving me my startup choices, select one, then get the same rebooting cycle over and over.

The computer is an emaichines with and AMD Athlon XP 3000+ processor. The OS is Windows XP.

ANY advice at all would be MUCH appreciated.

Thanks!

Matt

 

[Win2kpatcher]

yikes. When you say you have used that external hard drive hundreds of times do you mean on that machine or another machine? Usually the rebooting cycle is cause by virus activity, but if it happened right when you plugged in the device..hmmm..that external was clean of viri? Easy way to fix this problem though is to simply run a "repair" on your OS by booting from the Windows XP CD.

 

[Win2kpatcher]

Also I am assuming you removed the external drive and have tried to boot the machine that way right?

 

[six00ohm]

Hey - Thanks for writing!

I've used the drive with this same computer tons of times. I've tried rebooting with the drive both connected and disconnected. I figured the windows CD would be the best way to repair the problem.

Thanks for the help!

Matt

 

[SHAWN]

Repair install. See my sig.

 

[daappleby]

try disabling legacy usb support in the bios first.