PC problem - resets itself!

[fradu]

Hello there,

My PC decided to play up today, and will not boot, resetting at every opportunity.
I'm running an Athlon XP 2500 with 1.5Gb of RAM, using XP Home.
Despite attempts to fix the problem using a 'rescue disk' (supplied by the manufacturers but NOT a dedicated XP setup disk) the situation didn't change a jot.

I then put the affected HD into this PC, as a slave device.
This OS didn't recognise it, and kept informing me that the 'drive is not formatted'.

Can anyone suggest how I can recover my other folders and all their contents, if indeed they can be saved?!
Could a repair be carried out, using a dedicated XP set-up disk perhaps?
I'm fearing the worst I must say.

Any advice/problem definitions appreciated.
Thanks for your time.
Mark

[Stoney X]

fradu, what operating system is 'this' PC running. If it's not XP and your problem disk is NTFS then it wouldn't recognise the file structure. Just a thought!

When I read your post my first thought was that you might have heating problems. Is the fan on your CPU running?

Regards
Stoney

[fradu]

Hello there, It was running XP Home at the time of trouble.
The fan was serviceable at the time, but I guess it's possible it may have stopped working this morning. :confused:
The PC was working fine earlier today (on for a few hours), then it reset itself. It then reloaded and reset itself again over then times. The time frame between each reset got smaller each time.

Now that you have suggested it, I will invest in a new fan in any case!

Thanks!

[Stoney X]

fradu, what operating system is running on the machine that you put the drive into, i.e. the one that thinks the drive is not formatted?

Regards
Stoney

[fradu]

Sorry. XP Home is installed on both PCs.

[carlep]

Hi fradu,

I am not sure if you said your file system is NTFS or FAT32

If it is NTFS then have a look at for NTFSDOS, it will allow you to boot up with a DOS disk and then mount an NTFS disk - at least that way you can recover personal documents before trying some extremes.

http://www.sysinternals.com/FileAndDiskUtilities.html

Hope it goes well,

Carlep

[Another St Ivian]

It's probably (well, hopefully!) just some sort of HDD drive upset, but it might be worth having a read of my experiences with a similar system and similar problems. Take a look here. (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=168954)

ASI

[fradu]

Hello there,

Well the PC is back online now after a complete re-format and reinstallation of Windows XP.
I can never be 100% sure what caused the problems, but I will listen to all your advice and act upon it to prevent this problem from ever occuring again.

Thanks once more for all your help guys!

All the best,
Mark