Hi.. I'm new and on my wit's end.. I hope someone can help me.

I'm running windows xp pro on a gateway profile desktop 700mhz pentium III processor. I got it from a 3rd party that had no restore cd and seems to have upgraded from windows 98 to it's current os. I have an alternate pc that I'm using now to post this but it runs windows 98 also so I don't even have a windows xp disk anyway.

The problem is this... I was running an online scan at bitDefender to clean up some files my AV didn't catch and my connection dropped so I had to cancel the rest of the scan and restart my computer.

From that moment on.. that's all my computer would do. It reboots itself before the initial booting is complete and it does it over and over.

I'm able to F8 my way to the menu to choose safe mode, safe mode with networking, etc.. but it only gets as far as showing the screen with the drivers that are loaded and it reboots again. I tried the Last known good configuration option and same thing happens.. it reboots right after I click the option and then reboots again in the middle of the previous booting.

The farthest it gets while trying to load normally is to the windows xp logo screen before it starts doing it's thing.

Is this an XP thing or something else? Anyone else have this happen to them? I'm trying to see if I can order a restore disk from the manufacturer.. but if I can't get my hands on one.. what else can I do?


Thanks in advance

Without an XP CD all you can try is running the Recovery Console off of the 6 floppy boot disks that Microsoft provides. Details here:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310994

In the Recovery Console try the command:

FIXBOOT

If that doesn't work try:

FIXMBR

More details here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;314058


Otherwise you will need a Microsoft XP CD. If this was upgraded I doubt that the manufacturer would supply an XP disk but perhaps '98.