Repair SP-1 with SP-2 CD

[pmshah]

I have a sort of an emergency. I have a client in a remote location who has SP-1 installed & never upgraded to SP-2. The PC has suddenly developed some problems & won't boot into the OS even in safe mode. After listing out all the drivers being loaded it simply reboots.

I was wondering if it is possible to repair it with an SP-2 CD or do I have to create an SP-1 CD? Laying hand on the original disk would entail at least 3 days delay.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Delprat]

Short answer : Yes, and SP2 will be installed during the "repair-install" (and not uninstallable after)

++

[pmshah]

Thanks for your quick response.

I created an SP-1 Disc but did not get the option of "repair". Then I tried SP-2 disk. Same result. Having already retrieved the client data using BartPE & USB pendrive I tried to go ahead and freshly install in windows.0 directory. Windows installer did some kind of system maintenance & rebooted from the HDD. To play it safe I opted for safe mode GUI & the system came up. With great patience I uninstalled a lot of the unnecessary software that I could and rebooted. Finally the system came back to normal. Apparently what the client had done was remove the nVidia addon graphic card due to hardware problem & switched to on board via graphics.

Now the million dollar question. Is this option of repair install a function of installed OS or the boot CD? I have done repair installs on a number of SP-2 systems but that option was altogether missing in this SP-1 installation with both versions of CD.

Edited June 12, 2006 by pmshah

[Delprat]

AFAIK, "repair-install" is available when booting from full-install CD (not upgrade) with no unattended answer file (winnt.sif) ; or when making a local source on HD from this CD (again, with no answer file). I've used it with various CD : SP1, SP1a and SP2 (SP1 can be "repair-installed" over SP2).

The function is provided by the setup program, and it checks if the installed OS is the same edition of the CD (Home & Pro), with the same or lower licensing (OEM/Retail/...).

so the question is : were your CDs of the same edition/license as the installed OS ?

[pmshah]

As I said I created an sp-1 disk just for the purpose. I have been using slipstreamed sp2 disks for a while. Finally I used the sp-2 disk. It started an installation process but simply did some kind of maintenance. The system is simply back up as sp-1.

Thanks.