SP2 Causing machine to reboot at startup

[AareDub]

I've posted this at a few places and I'm copy and pasting it here. I really need some good help...

Ok, I need some help here. I'll go through the process step by step so maybe somebody can give me an idea of what I need to do.

1. I was running XP with SP1 installed and I noticed that when I hooked my old DVD drive back up it would crash before windows got started. I stuck in my XP cd and did a repair install. However, I accidentally used the XP cd with SP2 integrated in it instead of SP1.

2. The computer boots up and gets stuck in the restart loop that is also seen with AMD64 processors and the UMAX scanner drivers. I'll state right now that I don't have either of those. The solutions to both of those problems involve going into safe mode. I CANNOT get to safe mode. I edited the boot.ini to implement that solution anyway, just in case. Still no luck

3. I stuck in the XP/SP1 cd and tried a repair install hoping that it would go back to SP1 and not have the problem. No luck, it still reboots.

4. I installed XP/SP2 onto another folder (windows2) on the same drive and same partition. It works just fine, in fact that's what I'm on right now.

I imagine I could do a clean install over the old windows installation and it would work. However, I really don't want to go through the hassle of reinstalling/reconfiguring everything if there is any way possible to get around it. I'd like to get back to SP1 if possible, but it doesn't matter too much (as long as it works).

Any help would be appreciated.

AMD Athlon 2400+
ECS K7S5A Pro
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

Let me know if you need more info, I've been at it for a while and am going crazy. It's not inconceivable to think I left something out. Thanks in advance everybody.

[DS]

I had a problem kind of like that...acutally I just hated SP2 and went through and reformatted. After installing SP1 again after the format I saw that it puts uninstall files on there so you can just uninstall it later if you want. If you can get in to where you installed the SP2 see if there is an uninstall folder of some sort and try that.

[DS]

Here's some instructions to uninstall SP2 from Microsoft:

Uninstalling SP2

This service pack contains an uninstall mechanism that you can use to restore your computer to its previous state. When you run W2ksp2.exe to install SP2, a subfolder named $NTServicepackUninstall$ is automatically created in your systemroot folder. To turn off this W2ksp2.exe option, see the Install SP2 earlier in this artlcle.

Important:
• If you install any programs or services that require SP2 or that have fixes contained in SP2, uninstalling SP2 could adversely affect those programs.
• If you turn off the automatic backup option for W2ksp2.exe, you cannot use the uninstall SP2 mechanism and, therefore, cannot uninstall the service pack.
Using Add/Remove Programs to Uninstall SP2

You can uninstall SP2 by using Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel.

To uninstall SP2 by using Add/Remove Programs:

1. Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.

2. Double-click Add/Remove Programs, click Windows 2000 Service Pack 2, and then click Change/Remove.

3. Follow the instructions that appear.
Using the Uninstall Program to Uninstall SP2

You can uninstall SP2 by running the uninstall program from the command prompt.

To uninstall SP2:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.

2. In the Open box, type cmd, and then click OK.

3. Type cd %systemroot%\$NtServicePackUninstall$\spuninst\, and then press ENTER.

4. Type spuninst.exe, and then press ENTER.

5. To close the Command Prompt window, type exit.

For more information about SP2, see the Windows 2000 Service Pack Readme file (ReadMeSP.htm).

[AareDub]

Thanks for the info. The problem with that is that I used an XP cd that had the sp2 files integrated into it. It's installed all at once instead of being treated as an update. So, long story short, I don't have the option to uninstall the update :(