Windows XP SP3 woes

Can anyone refer me to a good computer forum where I can get some help fixing my desktop? I tried updating to Service Pack 3 last night. It took forever, about 45 minutes with a pretty fast broadband connection. When it finished and I tried to restart.... blue screen of death.

Safe mode? no go.

Last known good config? no go.

Put in the Windows CD and try a repair? It spend most of last night checking the disk, said it found and fixed some errors, but still no go. Still blue screen.

I spent about an hour online with a Dell tech support agent who ended up saying I need to reformat and re-install Windows. I would really prefer not to do that, though. I don't have a lot on there that is vital data, but there are a couple of things, some photos that are not backed up, and about 8gb of music on iTunes that I would lose (was going to back it up last weekend but didn't quite get to it).

Any suggestions?

Best idea for now is to leave it alone until you have a real solution?

For data retrieval, you may want to have -or have someone make you- a Linux Live CD like Knoppix, so you boot from it and "see" / copy your data out.

Linux experts are here, they can chime in.

Yikes. I'm really no help but that sucks. I've been there in the past and just ended up reformatting. It's painful.

Holy Moly, I haven't seen that happen to any of the PCs I'm updating yet. We're a Dell shop at work too.

I'm sorry things went wrong for you. I'm not applying this SP to my home machine for a while yet, just to make sure the bugs are worked out. We're only updating a few machines at work and testing them out for a while as well.

I don't have too much on my home PC, but that's because my wife uses it most of the time, I stick with the MacBook myself. With the price of external drives as low as they are these days I probably need to purchase one at home. I use the one here at work for my Mac from time to time to make backups.

beergears said:

For data retrieval, you may want to have -or have someone make you- a Linux Live CD like Knoppix, so you boot from it and "see" / copy your data out.

Click to expand...

That sounds like it might have some promise. I wouldn't actually mind having to do a clean install as my system is getting a bit old and probably was getting pretty cluttered up with junk anyway.

If I could retrieve some of the stuff off the drive I would be happy.

You appear to have access to a different PC, so here are a couple of suggestions:

1. Pull hard drive from non-booting PC, attach to good PC, copy data.
2. Buy external drive, get copy of knoppix or Ubuntu linux, boot bad machine from CD, mount drives, copy data.
3. Buy new hard drive, swap drives, fresh install windows, reinstall old drive as slave, copy data, then pitch the old drive.
4. Go to Geek squad, but they'll most likely screw it up and overcharge you.
5. Use homebrew to bribe a PC-savvy buddy to fix it for you.

Whatever direction you go, I'd recommend a new HD and a clean windows install. good luck!

the blue screen of death can be caused by many different things but in case its a corrupted registry which is very possible as a result of the SP3 update I would try following a guide like this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545
hope this helps.

jds said:

You appear to have access to a different PC, so here are a couple of suggestions:

1. Pull hard drive from non-booting PC, attach to good PC, copy data.
2. Buy external drive, get copy of knoppix or Ubuntu linux, boot bad machine from CD, mount drives, copy data.
3. Buy new hard drive, swap drives, fresh install windows, reinstall old drive as slave, copy data, then pitch the old drive.
4. Go to Geek squad, but they'll most likely screw it up and overcharge you.
5. Use homebrew to bribe a PC-savvy buddy to fix it for you.

Whatever direction you go, I'd recommend a new HD and a clean windows install. good luck!

Click to expand...

Hmmm. I wonder... could I take out the old drive, install it in an enclosure and then copy data from it to my laptop?

That will probably work just fine.

jds said:

Whatever direction you go, I'd recommend a new HD and a clean windows install. good luck!

Click to expand...

I agree with this. If checkdisk found errors on the disk, it was likely starting to go down that road anyways. I don't know how SP3 could have possibly caused damage to the disk. It could just be a coincidence that it happened while you were installing SP3.

A new HD is not that expensive and your Dell should have come with all of the OS, driver and third party software that it came installed with. Then, slaving the disk and copying your files over to the new drive is a piece of cake.

McCall St. Brewer said:

Hmmm. I wonder... could I take out the old drive, install it in an enclosure and then copy data from it to my laptop?

Click to expand...

With one of these, you don't even need an enclosure. I use mine all the time, it's incredibly handy.

USB-IDE/SATA Cable

BlindLemonLars said:

With one of these, you don't even need an enclosure. I use mine all the time, it's incredibly handy.

USB-IDE/SATA Cable

Click to expand...

That is cool. I need me one of those.

Well, I finally got my system up and running again by doing a repair with my Windows Re-install CD. Before that, though, I did get a hard drive enclosure and backed up my HD to another HD.

Then I got a bonus. I found an old 40 gig drive in the attic and put in in the enclosure. It should be good for transferring large files from one computer to another. I don't know if I trust it for backups, though. I don't know how long it will last.

Apparently, you're not the only person having trouble with SP3.

http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/05/09/1258229.shtm

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

It has many many utilities that should be able to help you out.

so a hard disk scan reported errors on your drive? that would be hardware failure, not the OS. chances are the installation of Sp3 caused you to start using sectors on the drive that are damaged.

I'm with cubbies...install a new hard drive and a fresh Windows install, then slave the old drive up and get all your data off of it now. a new drive might even come with some utilities to scan the suspect drive. I think Seagate retail drives come with such a utility.

If the drive HAS gone bad, don't forget to check it's serial number on the manufacturer's website. Nearly all new drives have at least a three year warranty, and in my experience they are quickly replaced with no fuss at all. Usually, I get a bigger drive in return!

SP3 has since been updated to correct for this problem. Do a search at Microsoft for it.

OK, so my home PC did start having issues after installing SP3. IE7 started running extremely slow, even to the point of locking up the whole system. Once it got in this state I had to hold ctrl-alt-del to get the task list to eventually come up, and kill the iexplore task manually. If I was able to get the IE7 closed using the top right X, the iexplore task would stay resident in memory and slow the system.

After taking the time to dig around some more I found an app called searchglow that was the culprit. It's part of the Microsoft Live toolbar, and after removing the Live toolbar the problem went away. That toolbar worked before SP3, but it was broken afterwards. I haven't tried loading it again.

I really wish I didn't need winduhs for testing. I have all of the automatic update features shut off and it still does updates!

Anyone know how to shut the damned reminders (firewall, updates, internet) that keep popping up? I'd trust a pile of cow-pies for security before MS software.

david_42 said:

Anyone know how to shut the damned reminders (firewall, updates, internet) that keep popping up? I'd trust a pile of cow-pies for security before MS software.

Click to expand...

Yes, its a registry setting.
Here's the correct instructions for adding the registry entry to disable balloon tips:
http://www.petri.co.il/disable_balloon_tips_in_windows_xp.htm

its done at the CurrentUser level, in case you have multiple logins you wanna turn these off for.

david_42 said:

I'd trust a pile of cow-pies for security before MS software.

Click to expand...

That's the truth, the proverbial fox guarding the hen house.

If you have another firewall installed (I use Zonealarm) you can shut off the Windows one without being nagged.

It is possible to disable all automatic update features (and the corresponding "auto-nags,") but it involves some fairly detailed registry editing, and/or group policy editing.

david_42 said:

I really wish I didn't need winduhs for testing. I have all of the automatic update features shut off and it still does updates!

Anyone know how to shut the damned reminders (firewall, updates, internet) that keep popping up? I'd trust a pile of cow-pies for security before MS software.

Click to expand...

There's a link on the left side of the window for those reminders. It has the title "change how windows alerts me" or something to that effect. Open that and uncheck all the boxes (There should be one for firewall, one for auto update, and one for antivirus). Close it all and be alert free from then on out.

Great! I bailed off of MS back at 3.51, but I still have to be able to test my company's applications, so I appreciate the info.

david_42 said:

Anyone know how to shut the damned reminders (firewall, updates, internet) that keep popping up? I'd trust a pile of cow-pies for security before MS software.

Click to expand...

I just stop and disable the security center service (open services in the control panel, double click the service name). Stop then change the start up type to Disabled and hit OK. Of course, always exercise caution when mucking with configurations, ect, ect.