PCFormat Forum Archive

Hi, someone asked me today for help. He said that has problems with his XP installation. Since he is a noob with pc's he recorded exactly what it does:
He swithces his pc on, and windows go to the classic crtl-alt-del logon screen. After he typed his password, the pc loaded for about 10 seconds and then displayed what looked like an error in the video very briefly, and then the "windows is shutting down" dialouge appeared, and the PC shuts down.

This is the only info I got... Any ideas why the pc boots, and then immediatly shutdown again?

My guesses are: driver issue, or virus.

Try see if you can get the PC to boot into safe mode. If it boots into safe mode OK, check the event log for any clues.

OK, but then I'll have to get the PC and do that myself, because there is no way I'll get him to understand what safe mode is...