Everything was working fine. no viruses. nothing. loaded all the automatic updates over the last couple of days. was still running smoothly. 17 possibly more updates. everything was fine.
UNTIL i loaded the actual SP2 download.
The download and install appeared to complete correctly. I was prompted with a "reboot for the install to become effective" type message, and a message from my online firewall software that microsoft was trying to contact theInternet.
I rebooted, figuring that i would get that prompt again, if it was something that the install need to do, Post-Install.
The Comp keeps trying to boot up. Gateway screen appears, then the load up screen for XP. But then, each time, it simply switches off and on again. I can hear the hard drive trying to boot up. But it can't:
Is this common?
Is there an easy fix?
(Note: Some time ago, i was working to fix my machine with a Gateway engineer and he told me to try
chkdsk, fixmbr and fixboot
in some order or other?
Would it likely do any harm to try any or all of these, if i boot up from my gateway install disks???
Does SP2 tend to mess with the Master Boot record or Master Boot?
I'm a little worried because in previous installation/recovery attempts, i've gotten messages about the mbr becoming unstable or something.
