Infinite Re-boot Loop - Windows 7 - :( Any bootable software suggestions?

[Galant]

Hi Guys,

I've got a Windows 7 PC which won't boot - it's stuck in an infinite restart loop. It's throwing up a Windows error - "Windows must now restart because the Plug and Play service terminated unexpectedly" - and no matter what I do I can't get it to stop re-booting. I've tried the various safe modes, tried unplugging everything connected (apart from the network cable), tried Last Known Good Configuration etc. I can get into the BIOS and it will sit there quite happily, so I'm guessing it's not a mobo problem, but Windows just won't start for anything.

Before jumping into re-installation land I wanted to see if there are any programs I can run from a disc or USB drive to try to diagnose or fix this issue.

I should mention that this is a pre-installed versions of Windows 7 and I have neither the disc nor the key. It's a situation where I'll have to send the unit back to the vendor if I need it re-installing.

Thanks,

A.

[MrJim]

You could try restoring the system from a previous system restore point. Go System Properties > System Protection > System Restore. Hopefully there'll be a restore point which should get around the problem...

[Galant]

Hi MrJim,

That won't be possible because the system won't stay in Windows long enough to use any Windows functions. It will begin shutdown almost immediately after getting to the desktop. There isn't even time enough to hit the start button. The same is true for the safe modes.

[DBarber]

You don't mention what make it is as far as i can see, some have pre-installed recovery options that don't depend on windows
t if you have no disk or means of making one(win7 disk) and you haven't created a system repair disk or can't access the command line option of safe mode then its game over i'm afraid.

[Galant]

Thanks DBarber.

By way of an update, I connected the drive up as an external drive with a caddy and managed to run a few repair tools on it so that it would boot but gave me a different error message related to the DCOM service and sometimes power service error. It would try to shutdown but could be prevented using the usual CMD window command. Long story short, malware and virus scans came up clean but a couple of tools to check HDD integrity returned lots of errors.

Written it off as a bad HDD.

Thanks for your time and help guys.