PCTech Forums

Sounds like a hardware problem. First, to stop the reboot: Right Click "My Computer" / Properties / Advanced Tab / "Startup and Recovery" Button / Uncheck "Automatically Restart".
Now look in "Device Manager" and see if there are any ! or ?.
Also look in the Events Log: Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Event Viewer / Double Click "System" or "Application".
Can you give us these details?
brad

Go to My Computer and right click on it and select Properties. Click on the Advanced tab then under Startup and Recovery click on the Settings button. In the System failure section make sure Automatically restart is unchecked.

This will prevent Windows XP from automatically rebooting when you have a failure and allow you to see the errors that may be causing the problem. It will also prevent you from getting into a situation that prevents you from being able to get into Windows XP due to a system error at bootup.

update

ive disabled the shutdown on failure box yet i still get the spontaneous startups

as for application events...
-volume shadow copy error
Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error calling routine CoCreateInstance. hr = 0x80040206.

-wmi adapter error
Open of service failed.

-true vector service error
TrueVector engine: File "C:\WINDOWS\Internet Logs\USER.ldb" was corrupt and has been copied to "C:\WINDOWS\Internet Logs\xDB7.tmp". File "C:\WINDOWS\Internet Logs\USER.ldb" was corrupt and has been deleted.
TrueVector engine: File "C:\WINDOWS\Internet Logs\IAMDB.RDB" was corrupt, restoring from backup "C:\WINDOWS\Internet Logs\BACKUP.RDB".
TrueVector engine: File "C:\WINDOWS\Internet Logs\IAMDB.RDB" was corrupt and has been copied to "C:\WINDOWS\Internet Logs\xDB6.tmp". File "C:\WINDOWS\Internet Logs\IAMDB.RDB" was corrupt and has been deleted.

-event system error
The COM+ Event System detected a bad return code during its internal processing. HRESULT was 8007043C from line 44 of d:\nt\com\com1x\src\events\tier1\eventsystemobj.cpp. Please contact Microsoft Product Support Services to report this error.

Do you have ZoneAlarm installed? If so then you might want to consider uninstalling it and reinstalling it to see if this fixes your problem. Be sure you follow the uninstall instruction on the ZoneAlarm web site.

Ill try uninstalling the program

However, the restarts began occuring before I even installed zonealarm so I do not think the cause is the program.

Did RB's suggestion help?
From what I can see now you may have some corrupt System Files.
Similar errors can also occur if you have a lot of spyware on the machine.
If you haven't already done so: Download / Install / Update / and Run .
See if cleaning out any spyware resolves the issue.
If not you may want to repair WinXp. Here's a simple
brad

heres what i did so far:
-ran sfc
-reinstalled windows
-reinstalled zone alarm

no effect

random restarts are still plaguing my computer
however, what is strange now is that when the computer goes blank, it doesn't restart normally, i have to press the restart button manually for it to restart.

i have question:
when in safemode what hardware and drivers are not loaded?

Thanks

is this a fresh install of windows xp,.. if so, then have a look in the task manager and look in the processes to see if "msblast.exe" or "mslaugh.exe" are running ,if so then you have a worm which is easily fixed,...

or is your memory faulty,.. dodgy memory will cause errors galore in windows,... or have you got a good fan on your processor,.. most new-ish boards restart the pc automatically if the pro.. gets too hot.

When in Safe Mode only essential Window's drivers are loaded. Most all services are disabled also.
Try this: Go to Start / Run / Type MSCONFIG and Click "Ok", Now choose Diagnostic Start up, this will take away all but the neccessary components needed to boot normally. Once this is done you may not have network or internet connectivity until you isolate the issue,so be prepared to deal with that for a while and a frequency of rebooting to isolate the problem. Make sure you reinstall all windows files so that they are there if need be. You will be prompted at every boot to restart because you will have to okay all the changes made in msconfig, but don't reboot, make a list or take a screen shot of everything in the startup tab, and choose two or three at a time, making sure to reboot after each one, and following the steps mentioned before about not rebooting until the next change is made.
brad