repeated shutdown and restarts

Scanned for malware with Ad-aware, Spybot Search&Destroy (both free) recently? Try clearing the browser cache:
If you're using Internet Explorer, click Tools>Internet Options
Click General tab
Click Delete files button

Other browsers may have a different sequence to clear the cache.

Ron

Message Edited by RoHe on 10-06-2006 05:55 PM

Unless you have very important data on your PC that you failed to backup, your best bet is to just do a clean reinstall of Windows. You will be glad you did. When you get things running well again, consider getting Norton Ghost 2003 (rather inexpensive since most people who bother with making a mirror image of their hdd want the latest and mistakenly go for expensive Ghost 10, which has a big surprise for them later down the road when their HDD crashes or their XP becomes unbootable.

2003 works from DOS and there are Net support groups that will tell you how to make a boot floppy or cd/dvd boot disk that works with XP.

BruisedQuasar: Whoa, doing a reformat and reinstall of XP is a bit drastic, and the very last thing I'd try.

motherofaprincess: Have you cleared the browser cache and deleting temp files, as I previously suggested? If the problem persists, post back because there are several other things to try before reinstalling XP.

Ron

If your system was shipped after July 14-04, you have PCRestore on the hard drive. That will reset the system to exactly the way Dell shipped it. You have to back up all your personal files to CD, floppy, etc first because they will be lost forever. Remember to back up your browser Favorites list and email address book too! Once PCRestore is done, you have to get your firewall and antiviral software working, then go directly to the microsoft update site to download all the XP updates again. You access PCRestore (assuming you have it) by pressing ctrl-F11 before XP starts to load. Follow the prompts.

You could try reinstalling Internet Explorer. Back up (export) your Favorites and email address book first. Open Add/Remove Programs control panel. Click Add/Remove Windows Components button on left side. Uncheck Internet Explorer. Follow the prompts and reboot when it's done. Go back in and recheck the IE box. When that's complete, log onto the net, go directly to the MS update site and download all the fixes for IE. And if you're lucky... ;)

Ron

Since you have SP1, I presume your system was shipped before July-04, so you won't have the PC Restore partition on the HD. A quick test is to reboot and press Ctrl-F11 before XP starts to load. If you have PC Restore, follow the prompts to reset your system to exactly the way Dell shipped it and save the trouble of doing a reinstall. One of the partitions is probably Dell's hardware diagnostics, which you access by pressing F12 before XP starts to load.

If no PC Restore, and you didn't reformat the HD when you reinstalled SP1, you may now have 2 partitions with XP taking up HD space. How big is this drive? In that case, you may want to reformat the entire drive and start fresh. Did you reinstall all the hardware drivers, starting with chipset driver (if your system needs it), followed by video, audio, network, etc? If not then I'd do that before trying anything else. And no, they're not reinstalled from the XP CD. They'll be on a drivers and utitlites CD, or you can download them directly from Dell's download page for your model.

Ron

Are you sure you're actually booting from the XP CD and not from the HD? You need to reformat the entire HD and start over so that XP gets installed on C:, and it can be the only partition. You'll lose the diagnostics partition, but that's not too terribly bad, and you'll gain back that space for your own use.

Here's a tutorial from Denny Denham, one of the Dell forum regulars, with help on reformatting and reinstalling XP. http://www.djdenham.com/Install%20Procedures.htm#Install

Are we having fun yet? ;)

Ron

:)