Random restarts/critical errors in windows XP

[Leafiann]

Hello,

I'm trying to fix a computer for a friend, but this time I'm well and truly stumped. The computer is experiencing a few different odd problems that I just can't seem to figure out.

The reason they asked me to look at the computer is that on the one user account (the account has admin priveledges) after a few minutes the computer restarts itself and then says that the system has recovered from a serious error. Only this account has the problem; the other admin account is fine. I created a new account and it worked just fine as well.

While trying to figure out this problem, my first thought was to use system restore; when I openned it there were no restore points available. I tried creating a restore point, and I get an error saying that the point couldn't be made, to restart and try again; even after restarting I still can't create a restore point. (I stopped and restarted the restore service, still doesn't work).

After one of these crashes, I got an error that was something along the lines of "A registry file had to be replaced from a backup copy. The replacement was successful".

I'm not sure if these symptoms are all caused by the same problem, or are multiple problems. I've scanned with both Norton and Ad-aware, and came up clean. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, I just can't wrap my head around this one.

Thanks,

Leafi

[faulkner132]

Try:
Right click My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Startup and Recovery Settings
Uncheck the box for Automatically Restart.

See if this fixes the automatically rebooting problem.

[glc]

If you do that, instead of rebooting it should bluescreen - read the bluescreen for clues. You can search on the stop error code.