XP Service pack 2 f***ed my comp.

[salt_peanuts]

I installed XP service pack 2 sunday night after Windows update automatically downloaded it, and it totally fucked my computer....it would hang on restart everytime, and wouldn't go into safemode, or revert back no matter what, so I had to reformat my whole drive...it was a total pain in the ass and I lost a lot of stuff because of that bullshit. Now, I have a 250 GB backup hard drive I store my music on, as well as a 80 GB ultra ATA RAID hard drive I use as my main windows drive....is there some program or something that will automatically back up my files every night (say while I'm sleeping) to my other hard drive? What would be ideal ( I don't know if this exists) is something that copies an identical version of everything I save new to my desktop (where I tend to throw most of my recently changed or saved files) or wherever; in the background automatically, so if I ever have to reformat my hard drive or reinstall Windows, I'll have a backup of everything from the previous day on....pay program or free, it doesn't matter, I just need to be able to get back up running in as small a time as possible in the future if I need to reinstall windows.

I wouldn't even mind if it created an exact bootable clone of my system on the other drive so I could boot from that if something went shitty...

On a side note, why is there no step by step confirmation mode for XP like Windows ME had, so I could have skipped loading the file it kept hanging on when it wouldn't start, and possibly been able to uninstall Service Pack 2 (if that was even possible) At least I could have went in and transferred my important files, which I thought reinstalling windows over an old installation wouldn't have erased, but of course it did.

[station82o]

Damn that sucks, service indeed...

[Burky]

I'm not sure it's that bad. My bro just installed it on a new computer, as the graphics drivers weren't working, and after the installation, everything worked fine and the graphics drivers worked, and there have been no side effects (so far).

[Eirikur]

I'm not sure it's that bad. My bro just installed it on a new computer, as the graphics drivers weren't working, and after the installation, everything worked fine and the graphics drivers worked, and there have been no side effects (so far).

Yes, that's YOUR brother's PC. His PC got fucked by it, as did one of mine.

After it got installed, Mozilla would no longer open and I couldn't even access the internet through IE. I turned off the firewall and that didn't fix it, and then I couldn't open Photoshop, either. I tried to uninstall it through Add/Remove, and it wouldn't let me do it! It sat at "Reading program *something*" for FORTY MINUTES and didn't move at all. So I had to reformat. Thank you so much SP2.

[Cowutopia]

Thank you for the warning. No downloading for me.

[cka]

It probably screwed your system over cause you had some spyware.

Grab a copy of nLite and make yourself a SP2 slipstreamed XP install, and reinstall it. I've got a slipstreamed xp disc and thus far have had no problems at all with it.

[salt_peanuts]

I am 99% certain I don't have spyware because I have ZoneAlarm Pro, Ad Aware, and Spyware Blaster all installed and running, and I do a scan with Ad Aware every night, so it's not that. I just think the video driver for my Radeon 9100 integrated graphics was interfering since Shuttle motherboards and Radeon 9100 IGP aren't exactly standard or common....it's too late for that now anyway, since I already did the reinstall, I just want to be pointed in the direction of a program that will back up my files as I change/save/delete them, etc. and is automated. Someway to save my Windows settings would be perferred as well since I'm sick of readjusting every damn thing everytime I reinstall windows....isn't there a universal settings file that saves somewhere in Windows I can copy? That is all, thanks in advance for guidance.

[cka]

Zone Alarm sucks by the way If you're in the market for a real firewall, try out Sygate Personal. It does a much better job. As for automated backups, I don't know of any software off-hand that can do that but I'm fairly sure you can setup a scheduled task to run a batch file to back stuff up.

[Thief Silver]

You could always track down some ghosting software, that way anytime your computer screws up, you're fine. Hell I need to get some I have 4 partitions I can store it.

[Dyne]

I am 99% certain I don't have spyware because I have ZoneAlarm Pro, Ad Aware, and Spyware Blaster all installed and running, and I do a scan with Ad Aware every night, so it's not that. I just think the video driver for my Radeon 9100 integrated graphics was interfering since Shuttle motherboards and Radeon 9100 IGP aren't exactly standard or common....it's too late for that now anyway, since I already did the reinstall, I just want to be pointed in the direction of a program that will back up my files as I change/save/delete them, etc. and is automated. Someway to save my Windows settings would be perferred as well since I'm sick of readjusting every damn thing everytime I reinstall windows....isn't there a universal settings file that saves somewhere in Windows I can copy? That is all, thanks in advance for guidance.

yeah i think i read at sharkys that sp2 automatically installs either its own standard IGP or video drivers (or both) and a lot of people were having problems with this.