SP2 f***-up. "System state" my saviour ?

[Jethro]

Hi all,

tried installing SP2 last night. Spent 2 hours at the "Finshing
installation" message. Eventually I figured it had hung, and (reluctantly)
rebooted machine. When it restarted I got a message saying SP2 setup hadn't
completed, and to uninstall it. I did this, it fnished uninstalling then
asked to restart.

On restart - ouch ! BSOD.

Tried "Last known ..." - ouch ! BSOD.

Tried "Safe mode" - ouch ! BSOD.

Tried booting from XP CD and "Repair windows" (I didn't make a floppy set of
ASR disks). Restarted system as prompted - ouch ! BSOD.

I have resigned myself to reinstallling fresh XP. Any data I want will still
be on the drive when I've done, the biggest pain is reinstalling all the
software (Office, Visual Studio 6 + .NET etc etc).

Before I started the process, I did a "Backup system state".

If I reinstall, and restore system state, what can I expect ? Will all the
user accounts and installed software be recovered ? Or am I being a bit
hopeful ?

Or does anyone have any suggestions about what might be causing the BSOD ?

Many thanks in advance

[RJK]

....been there, done that !
....it's a bit late in the day for you but, did you have a good read at
microsoft.com about the preparations you need to make for SP2 ?
.... http://www.theeldergeek.com has some good advice on SP2

regards, Richard


"Jethro" > wrote in message
...
> Hi all,
>
> tried installing SP2 last night. Spent 2 hours at the "Finshing
> installation" message. Eventually I figured it had hung, and (reluctantly)
> rebooted machine. When it restarted I got a message saying SP2 setup
> hadn't
> completed, and to uninstall it. I did this, it fnished uninstalling then
> asked to restart.
>
> On restart - ouch ! BSOD.
>
> Tried "Last known ..." - ouch ! BSOD.
>
> Tried "Safe mode" - ouch ! BSOD.
>
> Tried booting from XP CD and "Repair windows" (I didn't make a floppy set
> of
> ASR disks). Restarted system as prompted - ouch ! BSOD.
>
> I have resigned myself to reinstallling fresh XP. Any data I want will
> still
> be on the drive when I've done, the biggest pain is reinstalling all the
> software (Office, Visual Studio 6 + .NET etc etc).
>
> Before I started the process, I did a "Backup system state".
>
> If I reinstall, and restore system state, what can I expect ? Will all the
> user accounts and installed software be recovered ? Or am I being a bit
> hopeful ?
>
> Or does anyone have any suggestions about what might be causing the BSOD ?
>
> Many thanks in advance
>
>
>
>

[Jethro]

"RJK" > wrote in message
...
> ...been there, done that !
> ...it's a bit late in the day for you but, did you have a good read at
> microsoft.com about the preparations you need to make for SP2 ?
> ... http://www.theeldergeek.com has some good advice on SP2
>
> regards, Richard

OK, so no I didn't. However, is re-installing XP and then restoring system
state going to help me ? The system state was 2220 files and 380 Mb

regards

[Malke]

Jethro wrote:

>
> "RJK" > wrote in message
> ...
>> ...been there, done that !
>> ...it's a bit late in the day for you but, did you have a good read
>> at microsoft.com about the preparations you need to make for SP2 ?
>> ... http://www.theeldergeek.com has some good advice on SP2
>>
>> regards, Richard
>
> OK, so no I didn't. However, is re-installing XP and then restoring
> system state going to help me ? The system state was 2220 files and
> 380 Mb
>
> regards

If you do a fresh install (instead of a Repair Install, which it seems
you already tried), then everything will be gone. You need to rescue
your data first. If a user installs SP2 without doing the prep work
(making sure the machine is 100% malware-free, among other things),
there is a very high probability the upgrade will fail. Now your system
is in a damaged state.

Here are links to information about the different types of installs:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm - Repair Install
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install

There are various ways to rescue the data. If you need help with that,
post back and include a description of your computer.

Malke
--
MS MVP - Windows Shell/User
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"