Reboot fails after SP-2 - a cautionary tale.

[Phil N.]

This is info for all interested - a cautionary tale if you
will.

After installing XP-pro Service pack 2 on a modern Dell
machine the thing would lock up tight after power-on boot.
I could get into Safe mode, but that was it.

I had a modern IDE CR-RW drive (UDMA mode 5) as secondary
master, and an older IDE CD-R drive (UDMA mode 2) as
secondary slave. Safe mode brought up all drives ok in PIO
mode.

Disabling and disconnecting the old UDMA-2 CD-R drive
fixed the problem.

I speculate that there is a timing issue with the old,
slow hardware that showed up when SP-2 was installed. Much
of the OS has been recompiled and is faster in some areas,
but I don't know for sure. All I know is that the old CD-R
is gone and everything is spiffy.

Folks installing SP-2 and having difficulty booting up may
assume it's a SP-2 software problem, but that isn't
necessarily so. It could be old hardware biting you in the
buss.

phil

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

This is info for all interested - a cautionary tale if you
will.

After installing XP-pro Service pack 2 on a modern Dell
machine the thing would lock up tight after power-on boot.
I could get into Safe mode, but that was it.

I had a modern IDE CR-RW drive (UDMA mode 5) as secondary
master, and an older IDE CD-R drive (UDMA mode 2) as
secondary slave. Safe mode brought up all drives ok in PIO
mode.

Disabling and disconnecting the old UDMA-2 CD-R drive
fixed the problem.

I speculate that there is a timing issue with the old,
slow hardware that showed up when SP-2 was installed. Much
of the OS has been recompiled and is faster in some areas,
but I don't know for sure. All I know is that the old CD-R
is gone and everything is spiffy.

Folks installing SP-2 and having difficulty booting up may
assume it's a SP-2 software problem, but that isn't
necessarily so. It could be old hardware biting you in the
buss.

Phil,

thanks for telling the illustrative story.

Is this, by any chance, an Athlon 64 bit processor? You may want
to have a look at http://www.michna.com/kb/WxSP2.htm for the
explanation and for a workaround. The reason could be that the
driver falls foul of the new DEP (Data Execution Prevention)
feature that SP2 activates on suitable processors, mainly the
Athlon 64 bit ones.

Another possible explanation is that you're running a Prescott,
Celeron D or some other affected processor on a motherboard with
a faulty or obsolete BIOS that doesn't patch the processor's
internal firmware properly. The solution is a BIOS update.
Information about this can also be found at the above link.

Hans-Georg

 

[Phil N.]

It's a Pentium 4, 2.4Ghz. It could be that the old CD-r
is performing something bogus or illegal in it's own bios
startup at power-up time, and that, in turn, confused the
new DEP security features. It's no-never-mind as they say.
It caused problems and now it's history. If this story
help others troubleshoot the occasional weird hardware
incompatibility vs. SP-2, then we've done ok.

Phil

 

[Jane Crystal]

I didn't think any CD drives were available in Safe Mode. At least they're
not with Windows Me. Are they with XP?