Hang upgrading XP to SP1 over wireless network on Portege

[ITM]

I'm attempting to upgrade a Toshiba Portege 2010 from XP to XP SP1.
I'm doing the upgrade from a CD loaded on a network share, with the
laptop accessing that share via a wireless network.

The setup hangs during the "Preparing Installation" phase, at 50% of
the "Installing Devices" stage. I've tried closing down and restarting
the machine, but it always gets to the same stage and hangs.

The captions on the right of the screen continue to cycle, and the
progress dots on the bottom right also continue to indicate activity,
but there is no hard disc activity, and it remains in exactly the same
state for over an hour (with 35 minutes showing as the remaining
time).

I'm now unable to revert to my original installation, as whenever I
hard reboot it automatically restarts the setup process.

Can anyone suggest how I might get out of this? Unfortunately I don't
have a CD-ROM for the laptop, so booting from the Windows CD (or any
other CD) directly is not an option.

TIA for any help

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

Have you disabled your antivirus software before beginning?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Windows
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone

 

[ITM]

No, I didn't - but now I can't get back into my previous configuration
to do so. If I use the F8 menu and choose "Last Good Config" it takes
me back into Windows setup. I also can't boot into safe mode. How can
I abandon the XP setup?

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

Try reinitiating it, then cancelling out. Otherwise, you will need to do a
repair installation of the original installation. See:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Windows
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone

 

[ITM]

I couldn't figure out a way of cancelling out of the installing -
tried Escape, F3, every other F-key, Ctrl-Alt-Del, but couldn't
interrupt the install. Looks like I may have to trash the HDD and
install XP over the LAN