differentSky

Turning on verbose status messages may reveal something. For info on how to do this, have a look here: http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/1136/ I remember that on a laptop I had the HD developed a fault where things started to go very slowly, long boot time, logon and starting apps. A fresh installl of the OS would cure the problem but it would then deteriote within the hour. It was like super fast defragmentation or something. Turned out to be a hardware fault (just something to think about).

Ok, found and sorted the problem. The machine had a rage fury Maxx video card in it. Whilst the behaviour exhibited wasn't exactly as listed in this KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307151 It got me thinking. The card worked just great when the machine was running linux, and when I put XP SP1a on it. But XP SP2 didn't like it at all. I've swapped in a GeForce4 MX440 and it now works just fine. My fault for having old hardware in the thing, but it is just a test machine.

Well I just installed it successfully on my main machine (one I built myself recently). Which makes me think that there is a hardware incompatability with the other. If I find out what I'll post it back here in case others have the same problem.

Thanks prathapml, I will check into the bios. It's an older machine, i'll check out the mobo... @gabriel_buc I don't think it can be either of those two options, as it happens on a fresh install.

Hi, I applied SP2 (downloaded from microsoft site) to a win XP Pro machine that was already patched to SP1a. It updated, but on the first reboot, when it got to the part where the blue progress bar appears, it just reboots, gets to that stage again and reboots again... So using another machine I slipstreamed SP2 onto my original XP Pro disk and tried a fresh install. On the first boot after the install the same problem came back. I'm able to get into safe mode. Anybody else experience this, or have any suggestions? Thanks for any help.