restart shortly after booting

[lony1]

Toshiba A70 Laptop- XP Home OS-Bought at auction-80 gig HD only 30% left unused-Boots ok then either freezes(curser stops and have to turn off), or re-starts after about 3 minutes. Ran a repair utility-did not help-lol $50 piece of junk
Want to remove some of the useless programs? Won't stay on long enough to do that.

[banana_f]

hey i dont know if its the same problem but my computer also does that. check my previous topics.

bf

[Calum]

Do you have a Windows XP disk?
I think your best bet is to reformat it - I would do this with any used computer to remove the owner's files and start afresh.

[lony1]

well i don't have disc since lap top was bought at auction. Im sure I could get one from a friend. Would I just format the "C" drive? Can I just insert the disc and have it format? What is the command to type in?

[Calum]

If you get a disk, make sure it is legally licensed, otherwise you will just cause more problems.
Basically, you can put the disk in, reboot, and then the laptop will boot from the disk (if it doesn't, enter the BIOS and change the boot order so that the CDROM drive is before the HDD).
Then, just follow the on screen instructions, delete all partitions on the disk, and then format as you want.

[lony1]

Friend is unsure whether copy of disk is legal. Does anyone know if there's no other way to fix problem? New disk is a couple of hundred?