Windows XP SP2 problem!

[Psych]

I was seriously trying to hold out until I was absolutely sure that SP2 wouldn't kill my computer, which is very important for business and pleasure, but I couldn't wait to test out the 'features'.

I installed SP2, and when I restarted, it immediately had a STOP error on the loading screen. I had to uninstall SP2 from Safe Mode to get everything back to normal, and even now my computer is acting strangely. I have an AMD64 and I have read about a DEP problem in a MS KB, but it doesn't fit the description.

History of my comp: I tried to install Fedora 2 earlier this year, 2.6 kernel messed up XP boot and I had to fixmbr and change my HD to LBA mode. I haven't encountered any problems with this lately, though. I have an E:\ drive which is compressed.

Does anyone know why SP2 is causing STOP errors for me?

 

[bsobel]

Does anyone know why SP2 is causing STOP errors for me?

STOP errors are very specific, you will need to post the information from the error to have any reasonable chance at someone actually being able to answer the question.

Bill

 

[BossTanaka]

Your computer is very important to your business and you installed SP2. Since SP2 has not been out all that long I am wondering what in SP2 you deemed absolutely necessary to take such a risk. Also, if this is a business computer I am sure you did the smart business thing and backed up your important information, right?

 

[oldman420]

good point boss, sounds like you should have another box seperate from the work box to play with. generaly speaking doing os switches etc is considered risky and prone to failure and data loss hope that you have a good backup policy.
as for sp2 i am amiss as i have installed it on 12 machines 2 of them laptops np whatsoever.
i would backup if you havent done so and then slipstrean sp2 into your xp install and start fresh. that always works pending hw probs
dont forget to do a files and setting wizzard so you dont lose your config

 

[Psych]

Grr, well it is a home computer. But business is done upon it, and it is important. I have a bad habit with backups; they take too long. heh

My STOP error was 0x7, I believe, but I didn't take a picture of it. It was upon the very start up of the computer, not even time to load the loading screen for XP. Perhaps /noexecute=alwaysoff will help?

 

[arsbanned]

Send the error report to MS, they may link you to the fix. I had a similar situation and it turned out I needed to update my video driver (Intel Extreme on that particular unit). That fixed the issue in short order.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Psych
Grr, well it is a home computer. But business is done upon it, and it is important. I have a bad habit with backups; they take too long. heh

My STOP error was 0x7, I believe, but I didn't take a picture of it. It was upon the very start up of the computer, not even time to load the loading screen for XP. Perhaps /noexecute=alwaysoff will help?

Yes, do try to get the specific code, at least the first part of it - STOP 0x00000007 or whatever it may be. You can do a search for that at Microsoft's website then to get a listing of possible causes.

As for backups, you can either have a backup PC that actually has all the programs installed and is fully usable, or else have just a fileserver. I actually have one that's a bit of both - it's got a RAID 5 setup using 4 drives. Every night, my main PC runs Second Copy 2000, and backs up selected folders to the fileserver via the network. There may be better programs out there though; Second Copy is good for the most part, though it does seem to have trouble when it's compressing files to a large (greater than 2GB) zip file.

 

[Psych]

Yes, that does make sense. I will try to backup all my most important files on a small 20-40 Gb spare hard drive.

 

[DaNorthface]

you should always have an updated backup...

 

[Psych]

Do you think this will mean I will never be able to install SP2?

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Psych
Do you think this will mean I will never be able to install SP2?

No, you'll need to install SP2 and then figure out what is causing the BSOD (most likely you'll find an existing driver which needs to be updated)

Bill

 

[Psych]

Alright, I have been doing some more research. I am currently using LBA addressing from my BIOS because that was the quickest way to fix the 2.6 Linux Windows Dual-Boot problem. I doubt that SP2 will add another check to the ECHS (I think that was what it was called), but that was the only major problem on my computer's configuration history.

My absolute last question here is this: Is there a way from Windows to check the disk stats and write the data to the ECHS table so that Windows can boot up the way that Microsoft intends?

If not, I still have a Linux Rescue disk with fdisk and other fun utilities, but the above option is probably easier and faster.