I hope this is being posted in the correct area.. if not, I apologize.
I have windows xp pro running on a gateway profile desktop 700mhz pentium III processor. I got it from a 3rd party that had no restore cd and seems to have upgraded from windows 98 to it's current os.. So no disk for that either.

I have an alternate pc that I'm using now to post this but it runs windows 98.. pretty much my experience is locked in the windows 98 world. (and even that's pretty limitted)

The problem I'm having is this... I was running an online scan at bitDefender to clean up some files and worms my AV couldn't get rid of and my connection dropped so I had to cancel the rest of the scan and restart my computer.

From that moment on.. that's all my computer would do. It reboots itself before the initial booting is complete and it does it over and over.

I can F8 my way to the menu to choose safe mode, safe mode with networking, etc.. but it only gets as far as showing the screen with the drivers that are loaded and it reboots again when I choose either safe mode option. I tried the Last known good configuration option and yup.. you guess it.. it reboots again.

The farthest it gets while trying to load normally is to the windows xp logo screen before it starts it's rebooting party.

Is it windows xp or something else? Does anyone have any idea of why it's doing this? I wrote to gateway to see if I can purchase a restore cd but haven't received word yet. If I can't get my hands on a system restore disk.. what else can I do? Would I be better off purchasing an XP disk? Please tell me I'm not totally screwed.


Please help.. any advice or suggestion is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Hello Dazed

Welcome to PC Help Forums

Sorry to be so long in replying.

98 to XP upgrades are fraught with problems, it can be a nightmare.
My advice to you is what you have already suggested, and that is to get a brand new XP OS disk and do a completely fresh install.
As an aside your system specs are fine for running XP, I have run XP on a 266mhz and 128mb before today.

Thank you, Wolfeymole!!

It looks like it'd be easier to do that than try to wrangle a restore disk from the manufacturer.

I have one more question.. when I buy a copy of windows xp.. will i get a screen asking me for an admin pw to my computer before it will allow me to install it?

Just curious cause there's 2 accounts on the pc set with admin privileges. Mine and one that I noticed while in safe mode days ago. I'm not sure if the other "account" is a dummy account or a real one.

Thanks again!

one account will be named Administrator and is setup with xp and not too appear on welcome screen though.

Thank you, upgrader764!

thats ok!