I’m typing this from work, because my home computer may be dead. I don’t know for sure, just may be (I’m hoping not).
I installed SP2 last night at home. Maybe, it looked like a microsoft install, it acted like a Microsoft install. And then it prompted me to restart the computer… and I did.
It rebooted, made it all the way to the desktop, then about 15 seconds later, the screen went black. I rebooted again, same thing.
I tried rebooting in safe mode, it never finished booting up - it just sat there.
any clues as to what I’ve done? what I might have picked up? where I’ve gone horribly wrong? how to get the machine running again?
Will it boot in Safe Mode? Hold the F8 key down as it boots. It should ask if you want to run in Safe Mode. If so, choose that. Then, from Safe Mode, use System Restore to go back to before whatever disaster struck.
First remove all your USB hardware attachments. If you have a USB mouse and keyboard leave just those. If you have a PS2 KB and mouse laying around use those instead of the USB mouse and KB.
If it continues to hang, next remove all PCI slot cards (leave video if that is PCI based)
If it continues to hang you may have to install>repair with the XP CD, but I think your chances are better than even that either of the above removals (USB > PCI)will get you into windows.