Hard drive issue ?

My second in command (acer) workhorse pc had been very reliable over the years … its around 5 +years old
Recently, it started with occasional blue screen of death alerts and now just cycles through the start-up procedure getting as far as displaying the desktop for a few seconds then closing down and restarting ..repeat … repeat … rep

I suspect maybe a faulty hard drive !??
The hard drive has plenty of free space remaining.

Ill go through what I intend to do...can you advise if this is the correct procedure Or, if there’s a better solution?
Am I overly simplifying the procedure ? or, will it be as straight forward as ...

1/ Remove the hard drive from PC insert into a hard drive caddy and retrieve images, music and folders/files relating to my Adobe and Cubase projects. Backup everything retrieved to an external hard drive.

2/ Install brand new hard drive into PC.

3/ Re install windows from the back up disc I created when the PC was new.

Cheers

Sounds like windows it corrupt, have you tried safe mode?
A repair install should do it or a fresh install without format to get you back in.

If it's getting to the desktop I'd think the drive may be alright (depending on where it's gone IF it has gone bad).

Does windows tell you it's restarting, or is it just a sudden hard reset?
Have you tried doing a repair from the boot disk?
Any SMART errors from the drive?
Could be a thermal cutout on the processor/gpu, or a dying PSU? Are all your CPU/GPU fans spinning up?

If you had a dying hard-drive it wouldn't gracefully shut down. It'd either fall over with a BSOD, throw errors galore, grind to a very slow pace or just freeze. Depending on exactly what was wrong.

As with Gonzo, try starting up in safe mode (hold shift during startup) and then running "sfc /scannow" - this will go through the Windows system files and look for corruption.

You can of course, just go to step 3 on your suggested list. Wipe the disk and do a clean install of Windows - which will sort out any corruption for sure.

Historically ime (circa 2000-2009), eMachines were one of the worst three brands when it came to the output and quality of the PSU fitted.

Thanks for the replys fellas. ive had a rethink :) based on your suggestions ...

after extracting my stuff from the disc via the caddy ill try a reinstall from the start up disc... wont get chance to do this untill the xmas break but ill update this post when i do
thanks again.