I have this weirdest problem. I had a minor prob with my printer and xp wasn't removing the entire thing when i used "uninstall". So i restored xp after formating hdd and after that my computer has beer unstable. It restarts anytime. sometimes it'll restarts when xp is loading at xp logo and sometimes it will even restart when i try to boot from safe mode or even after i'm in. I tried to run it on either of two memory stick but still prob. The system is not overheating because it restarts sometimes when i'm booting computer that's been stut down at room temp for a while. I checked the fans, I even disconneted the restart switch. Is there any way it could be a hard drive prob? The only hardware I have changed is the hard drive which i'm running off a ultra ata pci controller. I even got a new ata controller. what could be the possible cause? Any help would be appreciated.

have u checked your system for the welchia and/or blaster viruses?? check here: http://computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/86063.html

Why did you reformat HD when you have system restore? Maybe the problem is with the printer. Try the easiest things first. Did the computer work OK, or were there problems other than with the printer?

I am running virus checking software and there is no virus on computer. One of the major issues I have been dealing with is ata card vs. ide on motherboard. Is the logical addressing different on both? If I was to install windows when hdd is connected to ide on mother board and then move it to ata card after installation, would that work? Maxtor said that i have to install it while on card but even when i do that, it gives the same problem. Also seem slike the problem gets worse as time goes by. Replying to the other posts. I had to reformat the harddrive because maxtor people advised me to do so. When I had the hard drive on ata card, windows 2000 was having problem when it was installing. At detecting hardware, it frooze half way so I installed windows 2000 when hard drive was on motherboard and then after the installation was succesfull, move to harddrive on to the ata card again so i can get some speed. Is the logical address different from the mother board using ide vs. using ata 133 card from pci bus? Maybe that could be a problem? Thanks, Paurav

Paurav Did you physically remove the ata card before you reinstalled windows. If not then that could be the problem. The quickest way of dealing with this would be to format hard drive again and reinstall with hard drive on ide. After OS is loaded shut down machine and reinsert controller card. DO NOT ATTACH ANY DRIVES TO IT AT THIS POINT. Reboot and install drivers for controller. Power down machine and attach drives to controller. If you put primary hd on controller make sure that your bios is set to boot from scsi/add on card. Also check that any drives attached to the controller are at least ata 66 or further problems may be experienced.