Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Microsoft Madness!

I had the same problem and couldn't be bothered to sort it out, I simply went in and restored an earlier version.

I'll look at the "fixes" and see if I can make sense of it all.

From what I read, the best (only?) way to effectively install SP2 is to do it immediately after a fresh install of XP. That would indicate a need to 1) wipe your current drive completely and start over or 2) start with a new drive.

I installed SP2 on a year+ old XP installation with no problems what-so-ever. I dunno...

I had troubles when I upgraded all my hardware, but my initial SP2 install went without a hitch.

Yeah, I've only had one problem with SP2, and it wasn't a boot issue. I had to roll it back because it was incredibly slow. Once I reinstalled it, it was fine.

No problems here with SP2 either. IIRC, I had to reset a couple of programs in my ZoneAlarm, but after that it's been smooth sailing all the way (saying a profound "thank you" to the computer gods).

I can get to the "list of modes" but it shuts itself down even in safe mode. I'm still waiting for a call from microsoft but I'm not optimistic. They said 24-72 for a level 2 tech to call but here it is at 67 hours and they haven't call yet.

Local repair shops have quoted me 150.00-200.00 to fix it without loosing all my files. They also said that they are doing a brisk business fixing problems caused by sh!t pack 2. It's enough to make me want an Apple. I'm not computer savy and all this stuff is making my head spin and throb. I may just bite the bullet and get the computer doctor to make a house call.

BTW, thanks for all the great advice and help from all of you folks. It is times like these that make me glad I'm a member here.

Happy Holidays to all!

I'm so sorry you have to go through this Mike. I rely on my computer SOOOO much for everything (not really a good thing) that it makes me crazy (crazier? ) when it's not working correctly. I'm not proud of this, but sometimes, when it's not functioning properly, I actually sleep very poorly. I'm just too dependent on it for many of the basics.

Hang in there. Though saying it ain't gonna make ya feel much better, the truth is, "this too shall pass."

Thanks for the kind words Jack.

I mostly use the computer to visit this board (and a few others) and make my silly little posts once in a while. I personally have nothing on the computer that I will loose sleep over if it gets lost.

It is the rest of my family that I really feel for because they use it for school and work and fun stuff (music,games,etc.)

It just grates my nerves to no end to think that Microsoft's s#!t mucked up my computer and that they will get away with it. I guess it's partly my fault for not doing a back up before installing but I really had no clue that anything this bad could happen. Oh well, live and learn

I'm sorry to hear that you're having so much trouble. I'm afraid this has left my area of expertise... But to you Windows experts out there, would it help if he did a repair from the Windows XP CD?