Re: Can't upgrade 2000sp2 to sp4



"philo" wrote:


"muzikhed" <muzikhed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:C0611388-F786-46E9-B089-251A867B1A4B@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I had a W2k sp4 OS which crashed - failed to boot after attempting to fix
Adobe program. With help from Dell I've wiped the c: clean & reformatted.
I
had much trouble getting it to boot at all. Would not complete the Win2K
setup from CDrom. Finally I partitioned my Heardisk0 into 2 virtual
drives:
C: and H: and I set H: as the systemroot. Then I was able to get
through
the Win2k Setup sucessfully.
Using Windows Update - I sucessfully installed Internet Explorer, but SP4
pack fails repeatedly. svcpack.log says: "Apply failed: c:
<temp>\download\ntdll._p on h:\winnt\ntdll to get c:\<temp>\ntdll..dll"
and
repeats a similar message for several dowen .dll files. scvpack.log then
notes that it displayed the failure message to me (the user):Message
displayed to the user: Service Pack 4 Setup was unable to download all the
Service Pack 4 files necessary for installation.

If this error persists after you have clicked Retry several times, go to
the
Windows 2000 Service Pack Web site and select "P
***

I'd truly appreciate any help.



It looks like you may have a hardware problem.
Having to divide-up your drive is not at all normal.

Go to the website of your HD manufacturer and download their diagnostic
utility
and test the drive.
If the drive is bad, replace it.

If the drive checks out ok...then do a RAM test

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp



Thanks for the reply! Interesting. I was working with Dell help on the
phone, because I could not get Windows to boot, Emergengy Repair Disk failed
and then All attempts to setup Windows from scratch were failing. The 1st guy
at Dell had me reformat the c: but that didn't work - I still couldn't
Install Windows.
Of course, I fooled around with Repair Console commands like map, fixboot,
and fixmbr to try to get back in - no success.

Days later, another guy at Dell led me through a test of my lowest hard
drive. It had sector errors, he thought too many, and recommended I buy a
new hard drive.
I have a Dell Workstation 530 with Intel dual Xeon processors. My 3
internal hard drives are all SCSI. After one false try on the SCSI buy
(wrong pin format) I was ordering another & also continuing to try to boot &
run setup. My guess was that I had an incorrect or corrupted boot sector,
but the help I was getting at the time was not adequate - Win 2000 not being
supported anymore at Dell.
On my own, I tried different variations at re-formatting and re-partitioning
and re-fixing the boot record with my existing SCSI drive in place.
Finally I got through the boot up sucessfully and was able to complete my
Win2k(sp2) setup, and then I re-installed the chip, Video, ATa, & Audio
Drivers, and then I sucessfully setup other applications compatible with
W2kSp2 - notably the (older,sp2 compatible) MS Internet Explorer version, and
other sp2 compatible applications, Adobe, and Itunes for example. All that
has been working very well, which has been increasing my belief that the
hardware may be OK after all.
I may be wrong, but is it likely that all these other apps would load & run,
but the Winn2k SP2>SP4 upgrade should fail on a hardware error?

So, I can see why you sniffed out a hardware issue because I was thinking
about a possible hardware problem when I partitioned the drive as I did. But
my re-partitioning of harddisk0 into C: and also an H: partition may just be
an artifact of my shotgun approach. I THINK I got "in" after I applied the
Fixmbr command with the correct parameter. I THINK I had previously tried
fixmbr c:, and on my sucessful attempt I tried something more like
fixmbr \Device\Harddisk0\Partition0

I ended up setting h: (the upper partition of my lowest harddisk) as the
systemroot,
and, while that's unusual, I've been able to sucessfully install lost of
apps to the h: with no problem.
So, I'd be glad to go back and re-do my partitions and re-install
evereything if I had confidence that that's absolutely required for W2kSP4
installation. But unfortunately, I've had weak help so far, and I'm not
inclined to spend $150 and a week on new hardware, or several days
re-installing all my currently working apps if I don't need to.

The RAM test you recommended is for Pentium & Celeron, aparently not Xeon
processor. After my long story, do you still think hardware is the problem?
Any other useful thoughts are so very welcome. I really need help.

Everything's great except I need SP4 so I can
- Use more current applications - (esp for my enduser app --- Matlab !)
- upgrade to XP or Vista before it's too late!
.

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