IE closes after 20 seconds, computer stuck in boot loop

[jasonz0rz]

Hey guys, I'm working on an issue at work (ironically enough!) and I was hoping for a second opinion.

A client's IE 6.0.2900 will close after 20 seconds - 2 minutes of him opening without an error message. This has been happening for 2 weeks, during that time a program called Ultimate Cleaner installed itself, he removed it (not sure if this caused the problem to worsen) yet the problems persist. Norton scanned at 2 am this morning and found nothing

He tried doing a System Restore, it failed saying that it could not revert to a specific date.

I had him try to go to MS' site or update.microsoft.com; however, he was redirected when going to microsoft.com to info.com and IE closed after about 1.5 minutes on the update site though the scan was running after he clicked Express, the first two times IE encountered an error and it closed.

From there, I had him boot into Safe Mode w/ Networking (via Run > msconfig) - he was not able to boot into any form of Windows be it Safe Mode, Last Known Good - he keeps looping back to that screen.
Does anyone have any idea how to get out of the loop? I've let him know we may need to reinstall Windows but we need to get back to the desktop to back up the data.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[CujoRbd]

did you try disabling all non-microsoft services and all startup items using MSCONFIG?

did you try a different user account?

have you run "sfc /scannow" at all?

depending on where you can copy it to, you can always get data off using the XP install disc.. just boot up with it and use the command prompt built into it.

[JPMiller]

Before reinstalling windows, you should do a repair....
The first thing to do is backup your files...
Back-up your "my Documents" folder, "Favorites", any Outlook Express e-mails, and any saved files you want to salvage..
Then to do a non destructive reinstall of windows...

boot to the XP cd
on the first screen hit "enter" as if for a fresh install (DONT choose (R) on this screen as it is the "recovery console" and is not what you want)

Skip the first repair option...
Choose the 'press enter to set up Windows XP now' option.
Press F8 to skip through the EULA.
At this point it will check for a previous install of windows and offer another repair option
Now press R to begin the repair installation.
Your system will go through the entire XP install process, but will not attempt to replace any of your existing data. It will simply reinstall the system files and redetect all hardware.
It WILL however lose your favorites and any Outlook Express e-mails
Once the process has completed, your computer will reboot and you can reactivate Windows, update drivers and make sure all Antivirus and Antimalware software is installed and updated again
You should re-download and install AVG