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Michael MurphyFlag for Ireland

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Problem Booting Elderly desktop

Working at moment in West Africa. Wanting to set up old desktop for student. It is a Samsung SyncMaster 753S
It has Windows XP, Home Ed. Installed. It seems in good condition. Having difficulty getting it booted fully. It begins to open Windows XP and then cuts out and repeats the boot cycle.   Have tried it in Safe Mode, but same outcome.

Something to do with the CMOS maybe. The battery ? But there must be a way around it.

Here are the details.
CMOS Setup Utility – Copyright © 1984-2001 – Award software.
Release Date 07/18/2003

Clock Set to 1 January 2001 (I changed it to 2013 but made no difference).
Primary HHD and Secondary HHD both showing up when booting. Also passing memory test. Everything fine until Windows starts to open. It progresses a little, then cuts out completely and re-boots.
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rindi
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Replace the battery.

Boot using a Life CD like Linux Mint, Zorin or Korora. Install the one that works best from the LifeDVD, or that suits your needs best.

XP is old and support for it ends next June, so you must replace it anyway. The OS's on those LiveCD's are free. Also, on the Live CD's there is a memtest included, so you can additionally test the RAM:

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mint
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=zorin
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=korora

Just a note, the syncmaster you mentioned is the monitor, not the PC...
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Emmanuel Adebayo
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Its because you have blue screen on boot - and it restarts quite fast so you cant see blue screen

boot the computer and press F8 (several times) -

and then choose Disable Automatic Restart on System Failure


http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ss/disable-auto-restart-vista_2.htm

post your Blue screen code here.

so we can help you.
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Briliant clear instructions. It worked first time. Thanks a million. Great site this.