Upgraded XP Home to Professional, Now Endless Reboots

[NautikaL 8]

I have a computer that had XP home which I installed the XP professional on. After the files were copied, the system reboots endlessly... it gets to the XP boot screen and then the computer reboots and this process just keeps repeating itself. If I boot into safe mode, the computer says it cannot continue XP setup in safe mode and reboots the computer, so safe mode doesn't even work. If I try to boot to the windows CD, it informs me that windows is already in the process of upgrading to professional, and I have the options of continuing the upgrade or trying to start over. Both options eventually lead to endless reboots. I can, however, get to the point where I can install windows on the same partition, but I think this would just create more problems, no? How can I get out of this upgrade process so I can just do a repair installation like I should have done from the beginning?

 

[montag451]

If you shove in the XP cd, as if to reinstall XP, it will ask you if you want to repair the installation.
Say no.
Continue on with the installation.
A few seconds later it will come up with another screen.
One of the options will be to repair an installation. Say yes.

 

[NautikaL 8]

I tried that (I think... your post is a little hard to follow). Let me explain more clearly what happens...

I press any key to boot from CD, and it tells me that another upgrade is already in progress. I select continue upgrade and it just keeps rebooting. If I select something to the effect of just install windows normally, it boots into windows setup (the blue screen where it loads all of the drivers and stuff). Then if I select repair, it tells me that an upgrade is already in progress and that I'm not allowed to repair.

 

[MrChad]

After the first reboot, make sure you ignore the message that says "Press any key to boot from CD". If you continue booting from the CD you'll never reach the second part of Windows setup.

 

[jalaram]

In the worst case, eject the cd and wait for the installer to ask for it again.

 

[tfinch2]

The same thing happened to me when I was reformatting a machine a few weeks ago. I installed XP and everything was hunky dory. I upgraded to SP2, and I had the endless reboot. I had to reformat and I installed SP3 and it was okay.

http://www.google.com/search?h...ess+reboot&btnG=Search

 

[NautikaL 8]

Yea, I just gave up and reformatted.

 

[Harvey]

My system was spontaneously rebooting. I found what appears to be a temporary work around on HP's site.

IMPORTANT!!! THIS IS FOR AMD CPU'S ONLY!!!

Their bulletin is a bit long and techy. The short version is:

1. Boot into Safe Mode.

2. Go to Windows\System32\Drivers.

3. Rename the file, Intelppm.sys anything else.

HP's example is xxxintelppm.syx, but anything will do. They also say you can just delete the file.

I'm glad you went to Errol with this one. I just got back from rebooting after applying the fix. So far, it's stable, but only time will tell.