XP "Reboot Loop"

My freind has XP Pro SP2, and this morning at school, he told me his computer is just running in a reboot loop.
He says everything was running fine until:
He downloaded, installed, and ran AdAware and SpyBot, because his brothers machine on the same network had so much spyware that I HAD to take a screenshot n title it "ownd ". So, Both programs found some stuff, and he removed it all. He then installed Sygate Personal Firewall Pro. Then, he went to reboot the computer and "it wouldnt let me" is what he said. not sure what he meant. So he just did the good ol' shutdown, and then restarted the PC. now, it gets to the Welcome Screen, accepts his password, and then says "laoding your personal setting" and reboots. He tried to reinstall XP, but it wont boot from CD...Anyone have any solutions? I suggested he download and use the startup disks for XP. Is there any way he can save his OS and files?

 

It sounds like a job for System Restore. See if he can boot to Safe Mode (f8 key after POST) and run it from there.

 

He already tried that as far as i know. Can he use the "Startup Disks" from Microsoft to repair the OS? Or how about using the floppies to boot and then using the XP Repair option?

 

That would be possible if he has the necessary skills. The Recovery console is not necessary all problems. If he can boot to Safe Mode he can possibly fix it from there.

It's impossible to guess what might be wrong with any degree of accuracy without more details. The logical thing to do is to remove any newly installed programs. If he can't remove them for some reason, then have him run MSCONFIG from the RUN window in Safe Mode, and untag them from the Start Up menu.

That should give him somewhere to start. Post back any results.

 

Aku - this sounds like an instance where you would really need to see the PC and see what your friend is trying to be sure.

- He may not know how to set his BIOS to boot from CD.
- He may not really have done what was needed to boot to safe mode.
- He may honestly think he has done both.

But to answer your other question, if he has a set of XP install floppy disks (6 I think) he can boot from them and once the CD is in, he can do a repair install that may well fix things up and if it works as it should, will leave his OS functional and not mess with any of his files.

If the repair somehow goes bad and you feel like helping out, check www.sysinternals.com for NTRecover. It's a free utility and if you load it on your PC, you will be able to copy off his personal files even if his system will not boot. Complete directions with the program.