ok I have a question this is different then the system rebooting in the middle of something. When I reboot my comp it keeps in a loop and just keeps rebooting. would that be cause from software or hardware. I narrowed it down to those 2 I wasnt sure if my harddrive wasnt syncing or if it was woderful xp

Is WindowsXP ever able to fully start? If no then it's software related with the OS; reccommend an OS re-install.

Note that it can also be an issue with the hard disk, but i'd start first with re-installing windows.

xp starts sometimes I have reinstalled xp after a while it starts doing it again I swaped hard drives and it still did it it this problem has occured tih my desktop and notebook

Hello.
Find another copy of Microsoft Windows XP.

From what I´ve seen usually when the comp reboots out of nowhere it´s a hardware conflict or problem.

You could try to take out for example the network card, sound card or any other hardware that is not required to boot up the comp and install a fresh copy of windows. If everything works fine, add them one by one and see what happens.

Also you should check the RAM and the slots and make sure they are ok. You should also take a look at the CPU temp since if it is higher then 70 or 75 degrees usually the comp reboots and it keeps rebooting till the temp drops.

Good luck.

I find the easiest way to figure out seemingly random system restarts is to goto the control panel - administrative tools - event viewer.

Check out the application and system logs and see what errors are occuring at startup and around the time right before it reboots. Also, there is an option that on a critical error automatically reboot, and if that is selected, could be the cause and it will show up in the logs.

Just like he said with the hardware and replacing one by one, it is a good idea if you still have a problem to do the same w/ software. Remove applications that startup via startup folder and registry.