OS crashed, help!!!!

by whitewool Aug 1, 2007 7:35PM PDT

One day I turned on my computer, only to find the blue screen of death. It said something about something needed to boot up not being found. I started looking for my XP reinstallation CD, and managed to find it (the first time I've ever found anything when I really needed it).

However, as I was following the instructions, I kept getting messages popping up saying that files couldn't be installed (there were at least 40 of them). I had no choice but to press the "continue" button, but I figured that it couldn't be too important.

Everything seemed to be going fine, but then I realized that things didn't seem to work the same. I lost the newest edition of WMP, but that was fine with me. However, I also lost SP2, and I can't seem to get it back. In fact, NONE of my automatic updates are downloading.

Does anyone have any idea what could have happened or how to rectify the situation?

By the way, my system is a:
Dell Dimension 4550 w/ Pentium 4 processor @ 2.4 GHz. 256MB RAM running XP, originally w/ SP1, then i got SP2 over automatic updates.

thanks!

Discussion is locked

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What did you do with that CD?

by MarkFlax Former Forum moderator Aug 1, 2007 8:04PM PDT

Did you perform a repair install, or a complete re-install? It sounds like you did a complete re-install if SP2 is no longer installed.

Does this Operating System now work properly other than the WMP and automatic Windows Updates that you mentioned?

Have you tried manual updating yet? If not, goto Start > All programs > Windows Update, (near the top), and see if that works. If not, tell us what error messages you get or what happens?

Mark

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I tried a repair install.....

by whitewool Aug 1, 2007 8:34PM PDT

but error messages kept appearing, and then I'd get the blue screen again. (I'm sorry, I forgot exactly what the message said.....helpful, no?). So I had to re-install.

From what I can tell, the re-installed OS works fine.

Manual updating doesn't work either. It doesn't say anything except "the following updates could not be installed", then it proceeds to list all the updates I tried to install.

I went into my update history, and found all of my updates (all of which failed) carried the error code: 0x80246008, if that means anything to you.

Thanks.

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OK, see if this helps.

by MarkFlax Former Forum moderator Aug 1, 2007 8:42PM PDT

Microsoft Knowledge Based article;
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916251

Let us know how you get on.

Mark

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not quite working.....

by whitewool Aug 1, 2007 9:03PM PDT

Microsoft proposed three solutions. One involved deleting a file. Did that, nothing happened (didn't expect anything to). Other two involved downloading an update. When i opened the executables, I got "the version of windows you have installed does not match the update you are trying to install".

I'm not sure what's going on. I'm trying to dig around and do some research, but do you happen to know what's happening?

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re-re-install?

by whitewool Aug 1, 2007 9:27PM PDT

At this point, I'm considering re-installing XP......would that be a pointless thing to do?

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If you want to start over,

by MarkFlax Former Forum moderator Aug 2, 2007 2:39AM PDT

then that's fine. You would lose everything and start with a clean slate.

I would use the opportunity to do a clean install, formatting the drive at the same time. This site gives guidance;
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

Mark

OS crashed, help!!!!

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