Continuous restarts

Hi, I installed SP2 on a XP Pro machine.
On the restart to complete the install, my machine continously restarts.
I cannot even get into safe mode to fiddle with it!
My windows repair cd says it is so screwed that it can't repair it...

Help!

Rich

Your computer repeatedly restarts after you install Windows XP Service Pack
2
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=878474
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE/OE), AH-VSOP

Are You Ready for WinXP SP2?
http://support.microsoft.com/default...r=windowsxpsp2

What You Should Know About Spyware
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/secu...ssoftware.mspx

AumHa Forums
http://forum.aumha.org

Richard Back wrote:
> Hi, I installed SP2 on a XP Pro machine.
> On the restart to complete the install, my machine continously restarts.
> I cannot even get into safe mode to fiddle with it!
> My windows repair cd says it is so screwed that it can't repair it...
>
> Help!
>
> Rich

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately it doesn't solve my issue. I can't
even go to safe mode to do anything with it!

"PA Bear" <> wrote in message news:<>...
> Your computer repeatedly restarts after you install Windows XP Service Pack
> 2
> http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=878474
> --
> ~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
> MS MVP-Windows (IE/OE), AH-VSOP
>
> Are You Ready for WinXP SP2?
> http://support.microsoft.com/default...r=windowsxpsp2
>
> What You Should Know About Spyware
> http://www.microsoft.com/athome/secu...ssoftware.mspx
>
> AumHa Forums
> http://forum.aumha.org
>
> Richard Back wrote:
> > Hi, I installed SP2 on a XP Pro machine.
> > On the restart to complete the install, my machine continously restarts.
> > I cannot even get into safe mode to fiddle with it!
> > My windows repair cd says it is so screwed that it can't repair it...
> >
> > Help!
> >
> > Rich

"Richard Back" <> wrote in message news: om...
> Hi, I installed SP2 on a XP Pro machine.
> On the restart to complete the install, my machine continously restarts.
> I cannot even get into safe mode to fiddle with it!
> My windows repair cd says it is so screwed that it can't repair it...

Do you have more specific symptom details you can describe?

In case it helps here is a previous reply to a related question:

<repost>
>I recall the video driver was one of the recomended updates. However, enable
> VGA mode did not fix the problem.

Did you notice in KB315222

<quote>
Enable VGA Mode: This option starts Windows in 640 x 480 mode
by using the current video driver (not Vga.sys).
</quote>

and

<quote>
Safe mode and Safe mode with Networking load the Vga.sys driver
instead.
</quote>


Make sure you try Safe mode if you want to avoid your new video
driver.


Also if you have a boot entry with the /SOS switch on it you could try it
to let you see the drivers as they are being loaded.

If you don't have such an entry there is apparently a new option
on the bootcfg command which could create one. For info enter:

bootcfg /addsw /?

Notice that same tool could be used to add the /BASEVIDEO switch
to a boot entry (which might be a better way to force vga.sys than
using the above suggestion of Safe mode.)

<title>KB307654 - How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP</title>


BTW this isn't really the right newsgroup to be conducting this sort of
troubleshooting in. You might get better help in an XP newsgroup.


Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle
---

</repost>

"Robert Aldwinckle" <> wrote in message news:<>...
>
> Do you have more specific symptom details you can describe?
>
Not really. Windows continously restarted. When I booted with the
option of not restarting on a system error the blue screen gave me no
info apart from a hex string.
All the safe modes stopped halfway. There was nothing I could do.

To compound the issue my XP Pro install disk wouldn't work as I have a
SATA drive and no floppy disk with which to provide the drivers!

In the end I gave up trying, and got a floppy drive, reinstalled
windows from scratch.

"Richard Back" <> wrote in message
news: om...
> "Robert Aldwinckle" <> wrote in message news:<>...
>>
>> Do you have more specific symptom details you can describe?
>>
> Not really. Windows continously restarted. When I booted with the
> option of not restarting on a system error the blue screen gave me no
> info apart from a hex string.

That's some of the "details" I was thinking of.


> All the safe modes stopped halfway. There was nothing I could do.
>
> To compound the issue my XP Pro install disk wouldn't work as I have a
> SATA drive and no floppy disk with which to provide the drivers!


Oops!

And no other bootable partitions to do diagnosis and repair from?



>
> In the end I gave up trying, and got a floppy drive, reinstalled
> windows from scratch.


Tough lesson!


Robert
---