Hi all-

Background (sorry it's long): SP3 messed up some functions of Window XP so I figured I would try a Windows Repair using the XP disk. I backed up all my stuff, booted from the XP disk (went into BIOS and had it boot from the CD drive), hit "enter" to enter Windows XP setup on bootup, selected my operating system and hit "R" and away she went. The computer did some things, rebooted itself, and then setup continued. A screen pops up with a list of "to do" items, with "installing windows" and "finalizing installation" not completed yet (no dot).

About 7 minutes into the setup, with the "installing devices" status bar showing, the screen goes black but the hard drive continues on for a few more minutes with lots of activity......then nothing but a black screen and a silent CPU tower with no hard drive activity.

When I reboot, I get the "set up continue" screen same as above, and then the same exact thing happens. There's about 7 minutes of activity with the above mentioned screen but then the screen goes black with some hard drive activity and then nothing.

So far in an attempt to fix this problem, I tried booting from the CD again to "repair the repair," but now I can't even get the "Welcome to Setup" screen. So even if wanted to do a clean XP reinstall, I can't even get the "welcome to setup" screen because after all the stuff is loaded (shown on the bottom of the screen) and I get the "setup is starting windows" message, the screen goes black and I get no menu options.

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas (should I not be messing with boot order, should I let the computer sit for a long time with the black screen, etc.?) that would be great as I am pretty frustrated and out of ideas. Everything is backed up because I know that XP Repair is notorious for stuff like this. What in the world is going on where I can't even get the setup screen?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
ualdriver

First, you would have been much better off simply uninstalling SP3.

Second, now that you've already backed everything up... my suggestion would be to format the hard drive and start from scratch... you can't repair a SP3 installation with a SP2 CD... just like you can't repair a SP2 installation with a SP1 CD. You'll either be prompted for the appropriate SP CD or it simply won't work because the older SP2 files won't work with the new SP3 files.

Zoron-

Well, that stinks for me I didn't know you couldn't use the repair function unless you have the save Service Pack.

Is it possible to get a Windows XP SP3 disk?

How do I reformat my hard drive and start all over again? With this SP2 dsk, I can't even get the "Welcome to Setup" screen when I boot from the XP disk?

Thanks,
ualdriver

Zoron-

OK, I figured it out. You can do a SP3 repair with a SP2 disk but one has to reinstall all the updates that have occurred since whenever the disk was created.

What was happening was when XP was doing the repair, it got rid of some software that my flat screen needed to run. So my flat screen was going black but Windows repair was prompting me for an entry to continue the repair, which of course I wasn't seeing so it would just stop the repair and do nothing. I tried a different monitor this morning (an older, simple CRT that I use when I'm building my occasional new rig), and it didn't go blank and I could finish the repair. So if you ever use Windows XP repair with a newer monitor, plug in an old CRT before you start!

Now that you have it back up and running... make yourself a slipstreamed SP3 CD. You can find instructions at tacktech.com.