[Generator]

Hey, everyone. Recently I've had a quite nasty problem with WinXP SP2 (yeah, what a surprise). Anyway, basically, my system reboots every time Windows is loading. It has nothing to do with a worm or anything, actually I think I messed up something...
Well, the thing is that I don't have anything backed up, so I don't want to format the system... yet. What I had my friend do is install a version of WinXP SP2 Corporate Edition over my totally messed up version. I know it's not the best way to solve the problem, but I MUST have access to my files ASAP. Ok, so the question is: is this harmful for my system? I know that I will have to re-install any programs that I had (no problem) and maybe some drivers. But, is there anything else I should do? Any problems that this dirty installation will cause or something?
Thank you very much, and sorry for making such a long post.

[ShoobieRat]

One thing you could do is pop that HDD into another machine (as a slave) and access it.

Another thing you could do is boot to Safe-Mode.

Or, you could create a boot-disk for XP and install from there.

My first try would be to slave the drive, though.

[TheMajor]

if you do an overlay install all programs, drivers and files should still work

I wouldn't do it though

I would hook it up to another computer, you don't neccesarely have to put it as slave, it depends on the way you connect it

[bla!!]

I've had that error quite consistently with friends machines. I actually called Windows support, and they gave me these instructions to roll back the SP2 update.

Boot to the windows CD, and enter the recovery console.

From there navigate to the following directory.

%NtServicePackUpdate%/spuninst

then type

batch spuninst


You'll see a lot of dos commands rolling down your screen, once its done, reboot the machine, go into the add/remove programs, and uninstall the rest of sp2.


1 warning though. One of the machines I did this on wound up freezing on boot so we wound up re-formatting.

[Generator]

Thanks for replying, people. Problem is right now I can't slave the drive or backup the files. It would obviously be the smart thing to do, but at this moment I don't have access to those resources.
I would've tried what bla!! told me, but that last warning just gave me the creeps...

So, anyway, I'll end up formatting this computer in a very near future, after I backup everything, but in the meanwhile, you think that an overlay install won't cause any serious conflicts whatsoever??

[ShoobieRat]

Shouldn't...but that's a "shouldn't" with caution and no guarantees.

Find a friend who has a computer and yer all set. You can have him/her slave your drive and you can get to your files.

[wead]

if your gonna format try bla!!'s thing. Most likely you will be fine dude