Computer Keeps Restarting After Installing Windows Service Pack 2

X_40's_X · May 24, 2010

after i installed service pack2.. i restarted my computer.. and it'll goto the flash screen with the windows logo, like its loading, then goes to a black screen and just restarts, and it does this over and over.. no idea what do to.. sooo i just reinstalled windows freshly again.. works perfectly fine.. untill i install SP2.. im not sure how to proceed and be able to install SP2 safely.. there are a number of reports with this problem.. what is best to do next? im using a Dell Dimension 2400.. yeah i know, bad specs.. trying to fix it up for a friend.. any help?

plodr · May 25, 2010

I believe Dell had a fix for this problem, posted a few years back. Let me do some searching.

You also need to install SP3 because after July 14th, Microsoft will not support any XP without SP3. What this means is that you will no longer be offered any security nor critical updates unless the computer has XP SP3 installed.

plodr · May 25, 2010

Still looking. This is what I was trying to find but I see it is in reference to SP3, not SP 2
http://msinfluentials.com/blogs/jes...ed-computer-boot-after-installing-xp-sp3.aspx

I also found this but I don't think the computer has multiple partitions so this might not offer any insight.

Blue Screen Horror on installing SP2 on Dell Dimension
Good Lord, so many times I tried to install the SP2 on my Dell Dimension 4500.

My problem was always the Bluescreen Horror after rebooting and I spent all these hours restoring to SP1!!!

Problem for me was that I had partitioned the C-drive (having multiple XP-installations) and after reboot the booting did not find the system. I really tried all options, using Norton System Works Premier boot-CD and XP recovery console. But everything failed. And, cursing Dell for not supporting the problem (other then a link to Microsoft on how to restore to SP1), I thougt I had to buy myself a new computer.

Until I the other day found the soloution using the XP Recovery Consol.

The crucial issue was that I had to change the booting path using bootcfg command. This command scans the drive for XP istallations and lets you add and bootable installations.

I had to do this on both partitions seperately and after doing that I can now easyly switch between my two XP installations.

TIP : A very useful thing to do before you do the SP2 install, is to install the Recovery Console on you C-drive On restarting / rebooting you then get the option to boot into the recovery console on the hard disk and it will load very much faster from there than from a cd-drive.

The bootcfg command "add" solved my problem. After some trial and error I messed up the boot-ini file and had to cleans it using the boot.ini edit function described in the bottom part oft the page here : http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/bootini.htm
Click to expand...

reference for Dimension 2400 and SP3
http://support.dell.com/support/top...&s=dhs&docid=4B7BF14FA25A4429E040A68F5A282C3C
and
http://support.dell.com/support/top...n/document?c=us&cs=19&docid=173237&l=en&s=dhs

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Computer Keeps Restarting After Installing Windows Service Pack 2

X_40's_X Specialist

plodr MajorGeek Super Extraordinaire Moderator Staff Member

plodr MajorGeek Super Extraordinaire Moderator Staff Member