Help! I installed a new DL DVD drive in place of an older DVD drive. When I attempt to boot up, before the system gets to login screen, it displays for a split second a blue screen with text I cannot read because it goes away too fast. The system then restarts by itself and then repeats the process. I can boot up in Safe mode without problems. I tried disconnecting the new DVD drive to see if that was causing the problem with I still get the restart problem. I did a System Restore to before the DVD install; same problem. Does this suggest a hardware problem? Could it be my motherboard? Please help!

Maybe you jostled something loose while inside the case. Try removing and reinserting all the cards. Make sure the drive connections are tight.

I've done that twice now. No luck.

I'm not all that familiar with XP, but can you run scandisk from safe mode? I had a somewhat similar problem with an XP system someone wanted me to look at. It wouldn't even boot to safe mode, but I remember the brief blue screen with some text on it and then it'd reboot. In that case it turned out the hard drive was failing. I suppose it could either be hardware or software. Swapping a cdrom shouldn't cause any problems. Maybe others will post in with some ideas.

Hi there DAVEINCAPS! FYI, XP does not have scandisk. It uses chkdsk instead. For you dfioc, I would leave the new DVD installed in the case, but rearrange the cables the way you had them before the install w/ the new DVD. Then boot up and see. There is some driver that XP is loading that is causing the problem---and booting into Safe Mode, XP dosn't load it, thus causing the computer to work fine. The culprit driver may be the CDROM, or maybe even the new DVD drive. Try what I suggested, and keep us posted. If God has to teach someone a lesson more than once for them to learn it, it just shows how stubborn they are.