XP SP2 Download Made Computer Crash. Help!

[mbkb1]

Hello! I am so glad I found this place.

My daughter has a new ipod Touch, and was attempting to upgrade XP SP1 to SP2 (in order to meet system requirements for the ipod touch.) Unfortunately, midway through the SP2 upgrade, the computer froze, and upon reboot, ALL of Windows XP seemed to be missing. (blue screen only. No icons, etc.)

The computer (Dell Dimension 4550) kept shutting itself off every time I tried to re-boot.

I was not able to start computer in safe mode, nor any other way manually. I called dell and they had me re-install service pack 1 (well, actually, it ended up being a "repair" of sp 1 in the end, using the original CD that came with the computer.)

It seems attempting to download SP2 caused my SP1 system to malfunction to the point that my computer didn't recognize I had XP at all. (?)

Needless to say, I am now hesitant to attempt to download SP2 again.

Does anyone have any suggestions on where to go from here? It would be greatly appreciated!

MBB

[Joe K]

Did it crash while downloading sp2 or during the install process? It should be simple thing. Try downloading and saving this file http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en then burning it to cd. I use this with my Dell XP disc that is befoe SP1 when I slipstream it. Ignore their note saying not to download for 1 computer!

Joe

[mbkb1]

Joe,

About 3/4 of the way through the download of sp2, (From the Microsoft website) the computer froze, so we re-booted, and that's when the screen was blue with error message, etc. (No desktop icons, nothing.) And it would shut off automatically. Tried re-booting in safe mode, etc. Nothing.

We were afraid we had lost ALL of our data on the computer, as was the Dell tech..But thankfully that was not the case after we did the repair with the XP sp1 CD.

Thanks for the idea. I am wondering if a sp2 CD might work better...(?)

[kdthmr1976]

Joe,

About 3/4 of the way through the download of sp2, (From the Microsoft website) the computer froze, so we re-booted, and that's when the screen was blue with error message, etc. (No desktop icons, nothing.) And it would shut off automatically. Tried re-booting in safe mode, etc. Nothing.

We were afraid we had lost ALL of our data on the computer, as was the Dell tech..But thankfully that was not the case after we did the repair with the XP sp1 CD.

Thanks for the idea. I am wondering if a sp2 CD might work better...(?)

Ahh so it was installing when your PC crashed. in the middle of the install when you rebooted the krnl32.dll was packaged and about to be replaced. on older machines sometimes its better to just let it wait a while if the mouse can move sometimes the processor got stuck on a large thread.

[Arie]

Did the problem occur midway through the download of SP2 or midway through the installation of SP2?

Unfortunately, midway through the SP2 upgrade, the computer froze, and upon reboot, ALL of Windows XP seemed to be missing. (blue screen only. No icons, etc.)

About 3/4 of the way through the download of sp2, (From the Microsoft website) the computer froze, so we re-booted, and that's when the screen was blue with error message, etc. (No desktop icons, nothing.) And it would shut off automatically.

If the problem occured midway through the download of SP2, then the problem has nothing to do with SP2. If the problem occured during the installation of SP2, it could be that the downloaded installer is corrupted (clear your cache and re-download to solve), you hard disk might have bad sectors (run chkdsk.exe to verify), you might have had various other applications running which conflicted with the installation of SP2 (kill all unneeded applications and processes before starting the installation), et cetera.

Some good advise: always make proper backups of your data, especially when performing a major upgrade.

[submix8c]

Helpful hint -

1 - download and install Flashget (use the v1.73 version - it's stable) from here -

http://www.flashget.com/en/download.htm

2 - go to the link given by Joe K for SP2

3 - click on the download then Cancel the grey Download box

4 - the next screen will give a Thank You with a "start download" direct link; right-click on it and choose "download using flashget" and wait for download to complete

I suggest this because it will allow a large download to be saved much faster and more dependably than MS' download/save BS.

Now just install it by double-clicking on the downloaded file (default save folder is C:\Downloads).

P.S. make sure you have about 500MB of free space on your HDD for all of this. It very well could have been what clobbered you (aside from a slow connection?).

Edited December 27, 2007 by submix8c

[mbkb1]

I appreciate the suggestions.

I have cleared the cache, etc. I will definitely try the suggestions posted here.

Thanks for the help. I'll let you know how it works out.