Win2k crashes after sp4 install.

[de8212]

Installed Win2k pro w/sp1 on a machine. Everything worked fine. Installed all the necesary video/audio/modem/NIC drivers without a problem. Installed sp4 and all seemed fine. Then I got the nice blue screen. Couldn't get into windows.
Reinstalled win2k and then installed sp4 before the drivers, etc. Shouldn't matter but I was trying something different.
I noticed when sp4 was installing it was going to my D: partition. Not sure why this was.
Somewhere near the end, Blue Screen.
I could boot into Windows but would immediately get an explore error and couldn't do anything.
I happen to have a Drive Image of that pc and loaded it fine. Has been running for over an hour now, no prob's. I noticed on the D: partition there is a large for simply named "D" that has, waht looks to me, the extracted sp4 files. I deleted them.
Haven't tried sp4 yet but will soon.

Why would it have loaded any sp4 files onto my d: drive? That has to be related to all the crashes.
Any input as to waht I did wrong or waht I should do next?

 

[mikecel79]

The service pack will use whichever drive has enough free space on it. I'd have to check this but I believe it will use the drive with the most free space first. It doesn't really matter which drive it uses. What would help us more is what the BSOD said. Without that it could be a million different things!

 

[MrChad]

You could always slipstream SP4 into your Windows installation CD then reformat / reinstall.

Details

 

[de8212]

Thanks for the help. Never heard that about sp4 using the disk with less space. I would think it would be smart enough to install into the windwos directory.
As far as the Blue Screens, I got about 4 - 5 different ones trying to boot it up. I know it's hard to figure out my exact problem. I was just hoping someone encountered something similar nad could share what they did to correct it.

I thought about slipstreaming sp4 into it but that poses a possible problem. The disc in question is a Dell Install Disc that came with my C800 laptop. It has sp1 on it. Can I use that to slipstream sp4 onto a new disc? I have doen it before with another win2k disk and sp3, just never tried with the dell disc and sp4. I guess it's worth a shot. I don't mind reinstalling because I don't have any programs back on it yet.

thanks

 

[RussianSoldier]

I've almost always found solutions to my blue screen blues by searching the message on google... Of course, if after multiple restarts, you're getting different errors, it might be a little more complicated...

 

[mikecel79]

I would think it would be smart enough to install into the windwos directory

It only unpacks the files into a temp directory. It does indeed install into the Windows directory.

 

[redbeard1]

I've known of a few systems that crashed after SP4. I had one that even after a wipe and reload and then applied SP4 still crashed it. I gave up, and left it at SP3 with all the rest of the security updates.

 

[pojen]

Maybe you should try SP3 instead of SP4 first.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: de8212
Installed Win2k pro w/sp1 on a machine. Everything worked fine. Installed all the necesary video/audio/modem/NIC drivers without a problem. Installed sp4 and all seemed fine. Then I got the nice blue screen. Couldn't get into windows.
Reinstalled win2k and then installed sp4 before the drivers, etc. Shouldn't matter but I was trying something different.
I noticed when sp4 was installing it was going to my D: partition. Not sure why this was.
Somewhere near the end, Blue Screen.
I could boot into Windows but would immediately get an explore error and couldn't do anything.
I happen to have a Drive Image of that pc and loaded it fine. Has been running for over an hour now, no prob's. I noticed on the D: partition there is a large for simply named "D" that has, waht looks to me, the extracted sp4 files. I deleted them.
Haven't tried sp4 yet but will soon.

Why would it have loaded any sp4 files onto my d: drive? That has to be related to all the crashes.
Any input as to waht I did wrong or waht I should do next?

Tell your system to create a kernel-style dump, then install SP4, then take the memory.dmp file that's made in c:\winnt, zip it, and send to Microsoft - and get Microsoft to help you figure out what went wrong. Windows 2000 SP installation is typically supported free of charge.

 

[burnedout]

Almost the same exact incident occured on 7 out of 55 Dell machines while upgrading to SP4 at work some time ago. To recover, I rebooted in safe mode and then restarted normally. All 7 recovered fine.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: burnedout
Almost the same exact incident occured on 7 out of 55 Dell machines while upgrading to SP4 at work some time ago. To recover, I rebooted in safe mode and then restarted normally. All 7 recovered fine.

Why did it happen? Did you get the memory.dmp files analyzed? I'd be very curious to find out what happened - and very skeptical about the reliability of those 7 boxes if I had to depend on them (or when SP5 comes out - <g>)

 

[Smilin]

Tell your system to create a kernel-style dump, then install SP4, then take the memory.dmp file that's made in c:\winnt, zip it, and send to Microsoft - and get Microsoft to help you figure out what went wrong. Windows 2000 SP installation is typically supported free of charge.

Exactly.

Before you start, install the recovery console from your CD.. "D:\i386\winn32.exe /cmdcons" (assuming D: is the cdrom)

Set to a kernel dump, tell it not to automatically reboot. Be sure to select the option to archive files while installing the SP. MS will create a grace case to figure out what's happening. If you have any problems PM me.