Greetings all, I have seen similar problems on the forum but none as bad as I have it, and the ones close to it were not answered. So I'm desperate right now & I want to avoid formating my HD. My PC (P4 3.0, 1GB RAM) is about 3 weeks old and not connected to the internet yet. I have done a hardware check and unplugged and plugged in pretty much everything.The computer is stuck in a reboot loop, it goes only as far as the Windows XP loading window with the loading bar on it then back to a restart. The XP pro will not go into safe mode and it will not boot off the XP pro CD it was installed from. It won't even boot off other CDs I have tried. Please help me if you can, I never got the chance of making DVD backups and I'm scared of losing all my work! Thanks in advance.

ComProb, sounds like you encountered a glitch in the XP install process. Think if it were me and I wanted to protect my data, I'd put my HDD as a slave on another machine (friend's) and copy the files to floppy or cd, then reinstall XP on my original machine and hope. Lot of trouble to go to, but if the files are really important... Another approach that might work (might also destroy your files) is to try installing XP over itself without a format (erases everything). If that fails, you can always do the installation with a format secure in the knowledge that you have preserved your critical files. HTH. Ed in Texas.

First try: Right clicking on my computer, properites, advanced, startup and recovery, then uncheck automatically reboot, restart computer. This will let the blue screen to pop up so you read what is causing the problem. Have you tried running a virus check?

"If that fails, you can always do the installation with a format secure in the knowledge that you have preserved your critical files" Actually I think Ed in Texas had a slip o the tongue,Formatting 'erases' all data. Tambits10's idea,while good,won't help you if you can't get in. Have you got the correct order for bootup in 'bios'?Is the XP CD an original or is it the system manufacturers recovery CD? Tt Lanfire nf7-s v2.0 XP-m 2500@209x11 SP 97 512mb pc3200 Jou Jye 550w psu FX5600 WDCaviar 160gb sata WDCaviar 160gb sata ;~}

Thanks everyone, as indigian pointed out i can't get into the PC at all. I have played around with the boot sequence in the 'bios' but nothing worked. I am using an original CD!

Despite your hardware troubleshooting it sure sounds like bad hardware, slave the drive and recover the data is your best option. alternately you could clean install on a different hard drive to avoid losing the data and if new drive works ok ,then slave old drive to recover data.

rebooting loop is a problem i've encountered twice in the past. I turned off the pc, rechecked all connections,turned on again then reset the bios to defaults. Turned off the pc and had lunch came back turned it on and it worked...No formatting.