Why does my PC reboot when I tell it to shut down?
When something causes a system failure at shutdown, Windows responds by rebooting. Thus, instead of telling you what's wrong, it gives the impression that it can't tell the difference between shutting down and restarting. Fortunately, you can turn off that silly behavior. Select Start, Run (just Start in Vista), type sysdm.cpl, and press Enter. Click the Advanced tab, and then click the Settings button under 'Startup and Recovery' (as opposed to the other two Settings buttons on that tab).Uncheck Automatically restart. That will stop the reboots, but it won't fix the underlying problem: the system failure causing them. Still, it might give you an error message that you can research to find a solution. Once upon a time, a major culprit for system failures at shutdown was Roxio's Easy CD Creator 5. If you're still using that version (the current product is Easy Media Creator 10), you can still find the bug fix at Roxio's Web site.Today, the problem is more likely to be caused by a hardware or driver issue. If the problem started soon after you added a new peripheral or updated an old driver, try removing the recent addition. Check vendors' Web sites for updated drivers for your new hardware, or use Windows' Device Manager to roll back to older ones if you suspect an update has caused the trouble.How do I get Windows to stop asking me for a password when I boot my PC?
Windows requires a log-in password for a reason: to protect you. If someone else can log in as you, they may be able to access your encrypted files, send out e-mail under your name, log in to Web sites as you, and even make purchases using your credit card number.You can protect yourself from the worst of those offenses without a log-in password--just enter passwords at other times. For instance, you can set up your e-mail system to require a password, and you can keep sensitive files in a TrueCrypt vault. But giving up the log-in password removes a layer of security.Still, if only trustworthy people have access to your PC, and if you take the right precautions, turning off Windows' native password protection probably won't do you harm.Turning the password feature off is simple: Select Start, Run (just Start in Vista), type control userpasswords2, and press Enter. Uncheck Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer. When you click OK or Apply, a dialog box will ask you which user should be logged on automatically. Entering your name and password this one time will free you from having to type in the info again.Why does my PC occasionally freeze at Windows' boot-up screen?
First, you need to figure out if this a Windows problem or a hardware problem. Try to notice at what point the computer hangs (admittedly difficult if the problem doesn't happen regularly). If Windows starts loading before disaster strikes, that means there's an issue with a startup file or a Windows component, and you can skip the next five paragraphs. If everything freezes before the PC starts loading Windows from the hard drive, the cause definitely lies somewhere in the hardware. If you're unsure where the problem is, try to isolate it by booting from a CD, DVD, or flash drive. Again, the intermittent nature of your problem makes the task difficult; you may have to do this daily for a while before you can be confident that the problem is on the hard drive--either a Windows glitch or something with the hard drive itself. If you don't have a bootable CD or flash drive, see "Six Downloadable Boot Discs That Could Save Your PC" for some suggestions.Of course, the culprit could be a boot device other than the hard drive. If your PC tries to boot from the CD/DVD drive before the hard drive (as most do), a defect in that drive may interfere with the boot even when the drive is empty. This could also be the case with USB ports and floppy drives.To determine which drive could be the cause, go into your system setup program and change the boot order. I can't tell you how to do this exactly, since it varies from BIOS to BIOS; look for a message soon after the PC boots that says something like 'Press F2 for Setup'. Once in the setup program, search the menus for something like 'Boot Options' or 'Boot Order'. Make your hard drive the first device in the boot order, and then save and exit. If that fixes the problem, experiment with putting different devices before the hard drive, one at a time, until the problem returns. Then you'll know the culprit.If all of the above tests point to a hard-drive problem, Answer Line forum member Snorg recommends error-checking and defragging the hard drive. You'll find the tools for both jobs by right-clicking the C: drive in Windows Explorer and selecting Properties, Tools. When you click Check Now under 'Error-checking', make sure that Automatically fix file system errors is checked before you click Start. If Windows reports that it can't perform the check because the disk is in use, select Yes (in XP) or Schedule disk check (in Vista) for the check to run at the next boot.If that doesn't help, and the PC freezes before the Windows logo appears, open the computer's case (if it's a desktop) and check the cables connecting the hard drive to the motherboard and the power supply. You might even consider replacing them. If you have a laptop, bring it to a shop and have a professional look at it.If Windows comes up and then freezes, something is wrong with your boot or autoloading sequence. The Event Viewer may tell you what. Select Start, Run, type eventvwr, and press Enter. In the left pane, select System. In the right (XP) or center (Vista) pane, find and double-click an event with a red flag and the word Error. If the resulting dialog box doesn't provide useful information, click the URL in the description box (XP) or click the Event Log Online Help link (Vista).Finally, you might try fiddling with your autoloading programs. Windows launches them all at once, and that can cause conflicts. Use R2 Studios' free Startup Delayer to insert delays before some of your autoloading programs. You might also consider disabling some autoloaders. Six Downloadable Boot Discs That Could Save Your PC
Way back in the 20th century, Windows prepared you for the day your PC wouldn't boot. It came with a program that formatted a bootable floppy disk, complete with diagnostic and repair utilities. If you had the forethought to create that floppy while Windows was still working, you were ready when it eventually failed.Alas, the Windows Boot Floppy went the way of DOS (the operating system it actually booted). Modern versions can't make that floppy (they can format a bootable DOS floppy--if you have the drive--but without utilities), and DOS can't handle NTFS hard-drive partitions.Since Microsoft doesn't supply you with the ability to create an emergency boot disk, others have stepped in to fill the vacuum. Here are six worthwhile emergency boot CDs, all downloadable, and most of them free.Yes, I know you can't download a CD. Most of these packages come as .iso files--easily burnable disc images. If you double-click an .iso file, there's a good chance that a program you already own--perhaps Nero Burning or Easy Media Creator--will come up and burn it to CD. If that doesn't happen, download and install ISO Recorder.Know Your Rescue OSs
Since DOS doesn't handle XP or Vista repairs well, each of these discs boots into one of the following three operating systems. It's good to know a little about them.Windows PE: The official, CD-bootable version of Windows (the PE stands for Preinstallation Environment) makes the obvious choice for this sort of thing. Unfortunately, Microsoft maintains strict control, and few utility authors have received permission to use it.BartPE: Since Microsoft won't share its preinstallation environment, Bart Lagerweij created his own, and he gives it away for free. But to avoid copyright infringement, he can't give you everything you need to create a BartPE disc. The missing elements consist of Windows XP installation files you may or may not already have.Linux Live CD: The name refers to any version of Linux you can download as an .iso file and boot off a CD. But Linux can be an intimidating environment for the uninitiated, it doesn't always handle NTFS well (many versions can read NTFS but not write to it), and it is seldom geared to help with Windows problems.The Six Great Rescue Discs
So let's get on with it. I'll start with discs that simply give you access to the files on your hard drive, and work my way up to the powerhouses that can diagnose and repair most boot problems.Puppy Linux
If Windows won't boot, nothing gets you into your hard drive faster or more easily than Puppy Linux. Puppy isn't the most powerful version of Linux by a long shot, but it's great for accessing NTFS-formatted hard drives--especially if you're not comfortable with Linux's whole mount concept. Just open the Drives window and select a drive, and Puppy will mount it for you--in read/write mode, if possible.If Puppy succeeds in mounting the drive with read/write permissions, you not only can copy your files elsewhere, but you can also edit them. Puppy Linux comes with AbiWord, which supports .doc files, and Gnumeric, which supports .xls. And even if it mounts read-only, you can still copy the files to an external drive, most of which are formatted in the universally accessible FAT32 file system.But be careful how you click. Actions that take double-clicks in Windows, such as opening a file, take only one in Puppy.Price: Free
BartPE
The BartPE operating system makes a pretty good boot disc on its own, getting you into Windows and letting you access your drive. It doesn't have much in the way of repair utilities, but it has chkdsk, which should probably be the first one you try. And it can run any portable Windows utility (that that doesn't require an installation) you care to give it.Creating a BartPE disc isn't as easy as double-clicking an .iso file. You have to download, install, and run Bart's PE Builder. To create a CD, the program needs the Windows 2000 or XP installation files. One place you're sure to find them is an actual Windows installation CD-ROM. But the recovery disc that came with your PC probably doesn't have them.Luckily, if your PC came with XP installed (and thus, not with a true XP CD), the necessary files are probably in a folder called C:\Windows\i386. But I do mean probably, not definitely. However, since the PE Builder is free, you're not losing much if it can't create a disc.Although BartPE's program selection is slim, the PE Builder lets you add other programs to the disc before you burn it.Price: Free
Vista Recovery Disc
It looked like Microsoft was finally going to do the right thing. Beta versions of Vista SP1 came with a modern equivalent of the old Windows Boot Floppy--a Start menu option called "Create a Recovery Disc" that burned a Windows PE-based emergency CD.Alas, Microsoft removed that feature before SP1 shipped--but not, fortunately, before NeoSmart turned the disc into an .iso file and made it available on their site. Running on the Vista version of Windows PE, the Recovery Disc is basically a Vista installation disc minus the install files. It even has an "Install now" button that asks for a Product Key before failing. You're better off clicking the Repair your computer button. Among its Vista-only options are a tool for diagnosing and fixing startup problems, a version of System Restore that uses restore points on the hard drive, the restore portions of Vista's backup program, and a memory diagnostic tool. Price: Free
Ultimate Boot CD for Windows
This BartPE-based boot disc comes with a huge selection of tools to access your data and get your PC booting properly again. Some of them are even useful.UBCD takes a long time to load and asks you some odd questions before it's finally up. But once it's there, you can edit the Windows Registry (yes, the one on the hard drive) in RegEdit, recover deleted files, and even run benchmarks. There are several malware scanners, four defraggers, and eight diagnostic programs (including HD Tune and Windows' own chkdsk). This boot CD also includes backup utilities to help you salvage your files. There's a driver backup and a system profile backup whose Web-based documentation no longer comes up. And four separate image backup programs. One of those programs, DriveImage XML, I considered recommending it but didn't because restoring from it requires a second Windows installation--something the program gets with UBCD.The experience of setting up UBCD is identical to creating a BartPE disc--with the same possibility of failure. But when it works, you get a lot more.Price: Free
Trinity Rescue Kit
This is the only Linux Live CD variant I've ever encountered that is intended specifically for rescuing Windows computers. As such, it's no surprise that it's a powerful and versatile repair environment.But it's really not designed for Windows users. TRK's command line interface could humble anyone but the most devoted Linux geek. If you take the time to read the 46-page documentation and learn the program, you'll be rewarded next time disaster strikes. Among the tools that will be at your disposal are a script that runs 4 different malware scanners, a tool for resetting passwords, a Registry editor, a program that clones an NTFS partition to another PC over a network, a mass undeleter that tries to recover every deleted file on the drive, several tools for recovering data off a formatted or dying disk, two tools for fixing master boot record repair programs, and hardware diagnostics.Price: Free
Active@ Boot Disk
Finally, we come to a boot disc that offers useful tools, is easy to use, and can be created from virtually any XP or Vista computer. The catch? At $80, it costs $80 more than the other five options put together.Based on Windows PE, LSoft Technologies' Active@ Boot Disk offers a well-chosen collection of utilities, including image backup and recovery, a CD/DVD-based data backup program (Windows PE and Active@ load entirely into RAM, making the disc drive available for other uses), and a tool for recovering deleted partitions and files. You can change Windows passwords, wipe your hard drive, and choose between three partition managers. A Windows Explorer clone lets you copy files off of the hard drive.You can even bring up Windows' Task Manager, although I'm not sure why you'd want to. And if you're feeling really geeky, there's even a HEX editor. Price: $80 (ten-day free trial period)
TROUBLESHOOT WINDOWS BOOT UP AND SHUTDOWN
HIPPYSURVIVOR WAS HERE ON: August 11, 2011
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