Help Please: SP2b back to SP1, comp shuts down = bad

B

Badger_sly

[H]ard|Gawd
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Mar 20, 2002
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Hello and thanks for any help up front.

A friend of mine installed SP2 beta without SP1. XP acted real strange then he called me. I told him to use the Add/Remove Programs on the Control Panel to remove the SP2 beta (as per MS website instructions). All was going well, was uninstalling, until his computer lost power, or shut down for some reason.

Now, when starting up, it gets to login screen barely, but immediately reboots every time. It reboots when trying to go into Safe mode, and it says it can not go back to last know good configuration because a file is missing.

We have gotten to the Recovery Console, but he had to go to work. Should we run "fixboot" or "fixmbr"? He is trying not to lose data which is on the drive.
 
Badger_sly said:
Hello and thanks for any help up front.

A friend of mine installed SP2 beta without SP1. XP acted real strange then he called me. I told him to use the Add/Remove Programs on the Control Panel to remove the SP2 beta (as per MS website instructions). All was going well, was uninstalling, until his computer lost power, or shut down for some reason.

Now, when starting up, it gets to login screen barely, but immediately reboots every time. It reboots when trying to go into Safe mode, and it says it can not go back to last know good configuration because a file is missing.

We have gotten to the Recovery Console, but he had to go to work. Should we run "fixboot" or "fixmbr"? He is trying not to lose data which is on the drive.
Click to expand...

First before the fools come out of the woodwork, this is not a problem with SP2. When his computer lost power it basically left him in kind of a hybrid state. Half of his files are XP RTM and the other half are still XP SP2. I would just do a repair install of XP (won't wipe data, just reinstall XP and keep his programs/data) and then install SP2 final over the top right away. He will need to reinstall drivers as well. This will standardize all the file versions on one level. He can then choose to uninstall SP2 if he wants, but I'd recommend he keep the final.
 
OldPueblo said:
First before the fools come out of the woodwork, this is not a problem with SP2. When his computer lost power it basically left him in kind of a hybrid state. Half of his files are XP RTM and the other half are still XP SP2. I would just do a repair install of XP (won't wipe data, just reinstall XP and keep his programs/data) and then install SP2 final over the top right away. He will need to reinstall drivers as well. This will standardize all the file versions on one level. He can then choose to uninstall SP2 if he wants, but I'd recommend he keep the final.
Click to expand...

Thanks man. I got him doing the repair install now, seems to be going.
 
After the repair install, please have him upgrade to the SP2 RTM. There is an issue when doing a repair install after having the Beta on the machine, that the registry for the RPCSS service get's in a wierd state. (Updating to SP2 RTM fixes the issue)


You can also have him uninstall the SP, by booting into recovery console and running spuninst.bat.
 
Anybody hear of system restore? This is why you create restore points before any major overhauls. And by default XP creates one restore point every day. Why don't you just restore from the day before you did this?
 
There are alot of people with same problem !
And one of the effects is there is no system restore,
to go back too.( one of the errors with this type )

Recovery console looks like the way to go .
Scroll down the page .

http://win-xp-sp.blogspot.com/
 
S1nF1xx said:
Anybody hear of system restore? This is why you create restore points before any major overhauls. And by default XP creates one restore point every day. Why don't you just restore from the day before you did this?
Click to expand...

There is no restore point to revert back to. It must have gotten taken out when he was reverting SP2 back to SP1 and his machine shut down.

****************
Update:

He got Xp reinstalled and actually got logged in, but................
XP did not like that reinstall one bit, it swore/burped/puked/ for a couple of hours of use, then crapped out completely and wouldn't start. I know the reinstall/repair would have been alright had it not been for the SP2 to SP1 mishap. Anyway, he's going to do a complete reformat and reinstall.

Anyway, thanks for your help.
 
Badger_sly said:
There is no restore point to revert back to. It must have gotten taken out when he was reverting SP2 back to SP1 and his machine shut down.

****************
Update:

He got Xp reinstalled and actually got logged in, but................
XP did not like that reinstall one bit, it swore/burped/puked/ for a couple of hours of use, then crapped out completely and wouldn't start. I know the reinstall/repair would have been alright had it not been for the SP2 to SP1 mishap. Anyway, he's going to do a complete reformat and reinstall.

Anyway, thanks for your help.
Click to expand...

Just for future reference, did he install SP2 final right after the repair install?
 
OldPueblo said:
Just for future reference, did he install SP2 final right after the repair install?
Click to expand...

He tried to, but the SP2 install would not complete. Windows would pop up with a critical message saying it had to shut down in order to protect the hardware (didn't specify what). That happened twice. Very strange.
 
If this was directly after a repair install, no new patches would be installed since the repair install reverts it back to a clean slate WinXP install, so it could have been hit by the blaster worm before he even had a chance.
 
Had the same problem on my cousins computer, I was pressed for time so I just formatted.
 
If SP2 won't install after a repair, I would look at dumping the OS and reloading...
 
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