I'm giving my old Dell to my mom and in the process I bought a larger hard drive for it. I have a copy of an OEM version of Windows XP home edition- the trouble is the disc is about 5 years old and lacks SP 2. (Note I have a new hard drive and reinstalled the windows).

I'm using dial-up. When I choose "custom" install I get the prompt to download Service Pack 2. I select download/install and everything goes fine, with a download bar appearing in the window. Problem is nothing is being downloaded- it just seems to hang. No green bar fills up. After half an hour to an hour it just pops up saying it failed to download service pack 2. I did successfully download some security updates before it prompted the service pack.

Any ideas on what the trouble is? Also, is there a way to download SP2 as a single file? If I can do that I can just use a friends computer and stuff it on my flash drive. Might be better since they have broadband...

The file is called WindowsXP-kb835935-sp2-enu.exe
It is the stand alone service pack
It is 266 m/bytes which is pretty good size for dial up.
If you have a friend with a faster connection or possibly the library have them put it on a cd for you so you will always have it.
Also keep in mind that SP3 is due out in a month or so so you will want to get that also.