SP2 Install Disaster

I need help bad new to using XP but was doing fine until I installed SP2.
Did the install let the machine do it's reboot and that was the end of it all.
My machine locks up on the Windows Screen and wont go any further tried rebooting several times and same thing continued to happen let it sit for about an hour and a half nothing. So i tried booting in safe mode same thing gets to a certin point then locks. Tried booting with XP disk in goes to choice of a reload or repair of XP tried both but when I do that then it tells me it didnt find any hard disk drives that I may need a manufacturer diagnostic disk or setup program. I dont have any disk for my hard drives.
My machine has dual drives running in raid o configuration. Do I maybe need to reload Raid Drivers? Is there a way for me to F-Disk this machine?
MY System:
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
3 Gig P4
512 Mg Mushkin Ram PC3200
Antec True430 Power Supply
ATI All In Wonder 9800
Dual 120 gig Western Digital Serial HD's
Win XP Home Edition

This is everything just in case theres a possibility of a conflict.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

Hello Pandora,

In safe mode, there is a restrore option to the last good configuration. There is also an option to use System Restore. If the SR panel comes up, Sp2 should have created a Restore point prior to the install, try that first.

Regards - Charles

 

Charles thank you for the reply but I have tried the last known good config.boot.The machine will not boot up in safe and on the screen where it gives me the option of booting normally or in safe mode or to last know good configuration I have tried all options and get to the same place each time. When I tried last known good config. it takes me to hte windows screen little band on the runs twice and then stops halfway through on third time just the same as on boot normally and just like first boot after upgrade. When I reboot the machine it is automatically coming up on the screen with the choices of how I want to boot and I have tried them all.

Thanks Again
Pandora

 

If you opted to have SP2 so it could be uninstalled, you should be able to boot from your CD to the recovery console and locate spuninst.exe that will remove SP2 for you. Hopefully that will roll things back to a working XP SP1 setup.

Here's the one from my system and yours should have a similar location. Since the recovery console is all command prompt stuff you will have to type the instructions and specify which command to run so for mine it would be (and no need to type the > symbol since it will already be displayed at the prompt)

>C:\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$\spuninst\spuninst.exe and then press the ENTER key

Note: I installed SP2 on a system that was originally loaded with SP1 already part of the install CD so if you started with XP, installed SP1 later, and then SP2 your location may have a slightly different name. In that case, maybe someone who upgraded theirs the same way would say what the folder name for SP2 is on their system.

 

Here is a link to Sp2 and Prescotts and older bios. If that is what your P4 is. http://forum.aumha.org/viewtopic.php?t=7447&highlight=

 

If you are using ATI Catalyst 4.7 drivers then drop down to 4.6 or install the latest, which is 4.8.

I had the same problem and found that SP2 and 4.7 was not compatible, but 4.6 and 4.8 work fine.

 

Thanks to everyone for all your help I have finally got the machine back up and running. I do have the Prescott that maggie mentioned above but I couldnt get that fix to work. But I finally got a fresh install of XP on my machine and now I will try all the suggestions from everyone to see if i can get SP2 loaded. I'm sure there are more disasters lurking around the corner for me on this so any ohter ideas on things I need to do before trying I would love to hear about.


Thanks to All
Pandora

 

Hi Pandora,

Just make sure that you have a System Restore point before you start the install, make a manual one. SP2 should also make one. There will also be a Add/Remove entry.

If for any reason you get into trouble with it, the uninstall procedure is to unistall through the Add/Remove and then restore.

Forgot to add, real good idea to close down all running apps during the install.

Regards - Charles

 

Sorry to hear that. I didn't see your computer on that list but your Intel processor looked suspicious and I have a ton of links for SP2 and troubleshooting the problems.

 

FYI for future reference.
When booting from CD with a RAID array or RAID controller you have to hit F6 to load drivers as soon as the machine boots from CD. Otherwise Windows wont see your RAID Array.

 

I just found another link on the Prescott, maybe you have seen it. http://cquirke.mvps.org/sp2intel.htm