Windows XP install restart loop

Question

Hoping someone somewhere can help me out.   Three days ago I installed Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 that came with an external DVD drive. That's when the problems started.   My system after the install went into a restart loop - everytime I tried to log in to Windows it would reboot straight away. Most times not letting me get as far as the desktop loading. After trying all the following it still wasn't working: Safe Mode, Last Known good config, do not restart on error, managed to get to msconfig and changed that to selective start up. Tried to uninstall the Roxio software - but to no use as as soon as I got that far system would re-start.   I have run the IDE Drive diagonistics - PASS Run the 32-bit Diags -PASS Searched endless for answers from Roxio - and it seems it's a known issue - but no help unless you can get into Windows.   As a last resort I chose to repair the Windows OS from the Dell CD that shipped with my pc. Once running the setup it got to the Windows XP splash screen and then asked me to insert the CD with XP HE on as it needed the 'ASMS' files - which it wasn't reading from the CD. Checked with Microsoft - again it's a known issue. So copied the files from the CD to the Hard Drive (folder named i286) and changed the location of the file each time it asked for the CD. Seemed to work wonders and read all the files. Now it's still stuck. I get the 'Setup will complete in...... 34 minutes (this starts at 39 minutes) And the green progress bar gets to about 60%. Then the screen will go blank as if the monitor has been turned off. (maybe for 1 second) Then it will go back into the XP Setup Splash screen (where it was before) No changes to the timer or the bar and then the system will reboot and it will be back at the start of the setup.   Can anyone help with this - or point me in the right direction as to how I can get back into windows. Ideally without having to loose all my data on the hard-drive (I know I know backups - however I've only recently got back from a holiday and family stuff from which I have photo's that are not backed up and would like to get these).   Thank-you for you time - if you need more info let me know   Adam Dimension 8300 2.4GHz Pentium 4 768Mb RAM 60GB IDE Hard Drive 64Mb nVidia GeForce4 MX 420 Graphics Card

zuben · Answer

download knoppix or similar boot it up & copy all your files onto an external usb hard/pen drive install win xp from scratch

AdamW72 · Answer

Just wanted to say a 1000 thank-yous for recommending Knoppix to me. I was able to get my data out and onto an external HD (after some reformatting issues - Knoppix doesn't like NTFS file drives - but small effort compared to the loss).   I now make sure that all my friends know about this.   (needless to say Roxio support - when they did finally answer didn't have anything useful to add).

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