Sp2 Loops of Death

[mrgoblin]

So I have tried to revive my old computer and I am trying to figure out what to do. It is an amd 3200+ 64 with an asus kv8 and 1 gig of ram. Im trying to install sp2 on my 80gig sata drive when poof, it restarted. Now whenever I try and run it, the windows screen shows, it says setup is being restarted, then i get a grey screen with a mouse and it restarts. The pc basically hangs right there. I dont really want to wipe the drive. Any thoughts?

 

[robisbell]

okay, try booting from the cd and wiping out the partitions and reloading windows.

 

[mrgoblin]

Thats the thing, I have important information on the drive. EDIT: And i lost my windows cd

 

[robisbell]

you're going to need that cd one way or the other. is this XP Home or XP Pro?

you can hook the hard drive up to another machine and copy the documents you need off of it.

 

[mrgoblin]

its xp home. I guess im gonna have to find someone with a desktop. I only know people with laptops believe it or not. Do you think an external hd enclosure is the way to go?

 

[robisbell]

yes, a good idea. then you can burn the documents onto a cd/dvd depending on what type of burner the system has and then a XP Home cd will work, you may even be able to borrow one that has SP2 already.