I bought a new faster,bigger HDD for my laptop,partly because I wanted a
faster,bigger HDD and partly because the original factory install had been
through the mill,BSOD galore etc etc etc.
HDD installed and original Sony rescue discs to hand I restarted the laptop
only to find the installation corrputed when trying to load service pack(1)
for(XP home) from an official Windows XP magazine disc.
Restart again-re-try SP1(from MS updates site-presuming the disc was
damaged) IE won't even stay open long enough to scan for updates and OLXP
crashes when attempting to post NG messages or send mail,going no further
than "new post" or "create mail"-freeze,then app closes.
Thinking the rescue discs were in fact a Sony practical joke I resorted to
my original MS XP CD which is responsible for you reading my post now ;-)
OK,all seems good and I've began to tentatively install my mountainous
gathering of software.
I have a serious dilemma over the SP however and whether I should attempt to
install it,how can I attempt to load the SP without risking damaging the OS
beyond repair(again) should it fail??
Many thanks for your patience.
--
The Dude-2004
"It's all because of the magic,baby."
http://www.freewebs.com/pocketdogmusic/

My recomendation is to get hold of a copy of a Corp Edition of Win XP
and 'Upgrade' your damaged system with it. Microsoft claims to not
support this version of WinXP with it's service packs, but Thats not
going to stop us now . When the upgrade is complete run regedit and
navigate through to the
LocalMachine>SOFTWARE>Microsoft>WindowsNT>CurrentV ersion Then right at
the bottom there's a short entry/folder to navigate to, it begins with a
W and should be all in CAPS. I would give yo the name but I don't
remember it off by hand, and I'm on a Linux system atm, when you get in
ther open up the long key and change the last Hex entry to 50, this
should let you install the Service Packs and Microsoft will never know .
The Dude wrote: