A few days ago my PC automatically downloaded the Win XP Service Pack 3, but I kept cancelling the pop-up prompting to install. Today I got fed up with it, so before going for lunch started the install expecting it to be done when I got back. The biggest mistake I've made in a while.
Got back to find the installation had failed, some error about running out of memory despite 2GB of RAM, 4GB page file and 60+GB HDD space. The error prompts me to click the only button available to try and reverse the service pack installation. At the end I restart my PC, get to the POST screen, where it fails to detect my harddrive :evil:
Not really much I can do without a HDD, and even putting the Win XP disc in to try a repair install failed as that couldn't detect the HDD either. Opened the case up, no lose connections, try again, and same results.
I found a spare HDD with Win ME installed (didn't want that, but access to my data was far more important) and plugged that in as a secondary. Fortunately it booted up through POST, recognised both HDD, and loaded XP off the original. System info still reports SP2, but connecting to the internet failed. After an hour on the phone to a very helpful O2 engineer we worked out that the problem was my DNS network settings. I can get to websites direct by their IP address, but typing the usual address fails.
We went through a load of command settings (release/renew DNS, IP, winsock), windows settings, IE, Firefox, router settings, numerous resets, and got nowhere. Also tried using specific settings for both TCP/IP and DNS, but again just get error messages. Pinging sites worked by IP, but not by name. I reinstalled SP2 (only) to hope it would overwrite the faulty settings but no luck.
Now using a second PC I find a bunch of forum threads going back to May 08 (presumably when SP3 was released) showing a lot of people having issues with it. Not sure on the cause, but it seems it didn't like certain motherboards and/or AMD processors. The previous XP install was a clean install from disc, and not the standard imaged version from a store which some threads seem to blame for their problems. Either way this long after launch, and with most of the threads quite old I'm surprised the service pack is able to so totally screw up a system.
Does anyone here have a solution short of starting from scratch with a fresh install?
System Spec
AMD Athlon XP 3000+ (2.2GHz)
MSI mobo - MS-6712 (KT4AV-L link)
2GB DDR RAM (PC2700)
Radeon X1650 Pro 512MB AGP
Windows XP Home SP2
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