Microsoft killed my PC

[Mike]

Hi All,

Been 'off-line' for a few days and probably will be for a few more days.

I 'installed' service pack 3 a couple of nights ago and my PC died. It got stuck in a sort of re-boot loop with a brief glimpse of that old classic; "The Blue Screen of Death"! I couldn't even get it to start up in safe mode so that I could recover the system to a state prior to SP3.

So!... After a rather drastic system restore procedure, I'm now left with a more or less virgin installation, I've lost everything. Hundreds of website fave's, emails, music files, photos, everything. All gone! I don't even have any email addy's in my address book anymore!

I'm going to be kind of busy for a while reinstalling tons of programs, downloading a gazillion updates, and trying to see how much of the 100 gig or so of lost data I can recover. Oh the joy! :steam:

Anyone else had any problems with SP3 by any chance?

Cheers,
Mike.

[anthonyTD]

Hi All,

Been 'off-line' for a few days and probably will be for a few more days.

I 'installed' service pack 3 a couple of nights ago and my PC died. It got stuck in a sort of re-boot loop with a brief glimpse of that old classic; "The Blue Screen of Death"! I couldn't even get it to start up in safe mode so that I could recover the system to a state prior to SP3.

So!... After a rather drastic system restore procedure, I'm now left with a more or less virgin installation, I've lost everything. Hundreds of website fave's, emails, music files, photos, everything. All gone! I don't even have any email addy's in my address book anymore!

I'm going to be kind of busy for a while reinstalling tons of programs, downloading a gazillion updates, and trying to see how much of the 100 gig or so of lost data I can recover. Oh the joy! :steam:

Anyone else had any problems with SP3 by any chance?

Cheers,
Mike.

hi mike,
sorry to hear that mate, i have always said, they are a "necesary evil" and the last thing i would want to do is to rely on them as my main music source as well!
hope you get it back to some sort of normality soon.
anthony,TD,:(

[Marco]

Same here, mate. Bloody computers!! :wanker:

I thought there was something up because you weren't posting as much as usual...

Marco.

[alb]

This is why so many are turning to Ubunto. It does most things and costs nothing. The nearest we'll get to putting two fingers up to Microsoft.

[Audiocom AV]

So!... After a rather drastic system restore procedure, I'm now left with a more or less virgin installation, I've lost everything. Hundreds of website fave's, emails, music files, photos, everything. All gone! I don't even have any email addy's in my address book anymore!

Hello

I have had this misfortune of this before but not with SP3. Nowadays I use an external MyBook hard drive for anything important, or at least backup.

I found this on the web;

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Windows-XP-SP3-Problems-Continue/

Regards,
Mark Bartlett

[Mike]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for that, it's rather relevant. I use a HP/Compaq with AMD processor!

It would have been nice if the update website said something like "do not install this if you use.....etc"!

Gits!

[NRG]

Another recommendation for Ubuntu, it's very stable and surprisingly easy to use....

[Mike]

Thanks Neil. Do you still have my cable BTW?

Cheers,
Mike.

[NRG]

Yes, I've been away and not really had the time to perform a full comparison, what I have found though is the nature of consumer SPIDF and it's reliance on phono sockets and not BNC is the main reason digital cables sound different IME. I obtained some more low loss satellite cable (CT125) with a foam filling after breaking the short run of air cored stuff I had.

Swapping the end connectors makes a heck of a difference. I'm going to use a pulse traffo and BNC when I get back to eliminate the dependency on any one cable.

I'll return your cable or send it on to Ali if he still wants it.

[Mike]

Hi Neil,

If you want some satellite/broadband cable to play with let me know, I've got miles of the stuff! :eyebrows:
BNC connections are also something of a 'speciality' I have access too!

Cheers,
Mike.

[leo]

Swapping the end connectors makes a heck of a difference. I'm going to use a pulse traffo and BNC when I get back to eliminate the dependency on any one cable.



Good man;) No need to be faffing about with cables once the terminations and SPDIF circuitry is sorted

[Filterlab]

Sorry to hear of your Microsoft woes Mike, very frustrating, my works PC drives me mad sometimes. However thanks for the warning, I will certainly avoid SP3 on the works system.

Now of course is your ideal time to move to Apple and leave all this sort of crud behind. :)

[funkpilz]

This is why so many are turning to Ubunto. It does most things and costs nothing. The nearest we'll get to putting two fingers up to Microsoft.Installing Ubuntu f*cked up both my harddrives (one of them backup) about a month ago. I lost everything.

The moral of the story - it's not Microsoft that sucks. It's computers that suck. But you will have more fun using other operating systems.

[Filterlab]

Installing Ubuntu f*cked up both my harddrives (one of them backup) about a month ago. I lost everything.

That's bad news mate.


...it's not Microsoft that sucks.

Couldn't agree less. :)


But you will have more fun using other operating systems.

Couldn't agree more. :)

[DSJR]

I don't have precious files on the main drive of my main PC so installed SP3 anyway after shutting down the spyware and anti-virus software. I didn't have any problems except one of the additional updates on "Windows Update" hanged itself, fixed by downloading and installing separately.

I'm at that frustrating level of competence where I know more than enough to get by and get into trouble, but still not enough to sort things easily.

Bloomin' PC's...

[BajaGringo]

One of the first things I do with a new PC is turn automatic updates off...