to stop restart in order to see the error message, I think if you press the start button, click on run and type msconfig and press enter, you should find a page where you see Turn off automatic restart (or something like that)(you may need to be logged in as Administrator). It does seem hardware related doesn't it? Have you tried restarting with just one memory module - first one, then the other. re the hard drive, if you know the manufacturer you can go to their web site and maybe find a program to download that would test the hard drive, I think you may be able to download to a bootable disk using another pc? Other posters will know more about this. HTH

Thanks for your suggestions. Since I cannot get into windows, there is no way I can get in msconfig. Also, I used the Dell diagostic utilities which scanned the hard drive (the read, write, verify, etc. detailed and took an hour to do it), and found no errors. It is an IBM Travelstar 30 GB. Anyone else have other ideas? Edit: it also did test on the ram modules, address line and data line and found no error. Edit: I can boot into DOS and access the C:\windows. But, I do not know how to change msconfig from there to stop it from auto restart. Message Edited by khs8 on 03-02-2007 03:20 PM

Message Edited by khs8 on 03-02-2007 03:25 PM

hi, you said in your first message that you reformatted the drive and reinstalled windows, and that it then worked for a while. Then you said you would format again - have you tried this as perhaps this would let you get in to windows again?

Reformat the drive last night, this time the long format. It is working now. I'll see if the problem comes back in a few days (which was what happened last time). I'll download some Travelstar HDD utilities and test the drive again. But the Dell Diag Utilities did test everything which took 2 hrs to do. I can boot, but just cannot load windows. This time around, I loaded the AVG antivirus and AVGS the anti-spy first before downloading anything. I'll just keep my figures crossed.