SP1 on stage 3 100% then reverts???

Well here is the story of my Sundays efforts. I downloaded the stand alone version SP1 and burned a CD. The thought of dumping all drivers (except system) was more than I could bear and my external hard drive is small and didn't have enough room on disk for a back up to do a clean install. So to expedite I got this idea of a work around. I made a system restore point. Then I booted into the Windows recovery environment. Chose safe mood without networks. Once there ran the SP1 CD. It ran stage 1 and 2 to 100% then rebooted for stage 3. On the P.O.S.T. I F8ed to safe without networks again. (tell me if I'm wrong but in safe mood only system drivers are loaded right?) I digress, any may stage three ran to 100% and after 1 hour and45 minutes of grinding I got "SP1 failed to install-reverting changes" From 10:30 AM to 4:00 PM before I got back to my log in screen. At that point I had a mood. Any thoughts besides buck it up and do what I told you?

Now will you uninstall the drivers and try Sp1?

You can try the drivers one at a time, just make sure you can download replacement drivers from the OEM site first...if a device is using a Microsoft Windows driver, don't uninstall it, obviously.

Disconnect from the internet and turn off you anti virus and firewall.
Then try it again.
I had the same trouble after the 4th try that is what I did.
Worked fine.

Jimmy

safe mode won't have an AV/ FW running - or *shoudn't*.

The firewall and AV do not run if safe mode. Nothing runs in safe mood except basic windows no programs no printers no networks. Thats the moment of pause I'm having, why did it not work?

However, even though nothing is *running* the files are still there - hence my suggestion to *uninstall* drivers. Not having them installed is completely different from not having them *running*.

Ah yes, that rings clear. Well there you go thats why I'm asking for help. If I name the drivers and copy to a CD it will be manageable. I do appreciate you're help Johngalt. I'll post the out come. It will be a couple of days till I can cut loose the time tho doggoneit.
dedet

Not a problem - it is a lesson I had to learn sometime in the past as well. It's a hard lesson to accept and understand, as today's software is a lot more complicated than software written just 5 years ago, let alone stuff from the 80s.

Do post back with results - and I sincerely hope this actually works for you - else we're back at square one.

Well here we are at square one! I went to device manager and checked every non system driver for signatures. All were good with the exception of my TV combo tuner PCIe card and my Lite on DVD rom and lite on DVD burner drives. The latter had four drivers each two of whitch were not signed. So I used the uninstall/delate button and deleted them one and all. Then checked the trash to make sure there was no evidence of them that I could find at my skill level. On the re boot I went back into device manager and tool a look. The TV card had hooked up with signed drivers but the two DVD drives loaded up just as the had been previous to the re boot. I then went to my down load file (I keep the important exe's). burned copies of them and deleted the file contents. Rebooted again with the same result, with the drivers and my DVD drives in device manager. At that point I thought what the hell give it a go. I deleted the drivers once again and booted into safe mode and on the post, after stage one and two ran to 100% went to safe, again, for stage three which went to 100%------------- then 7min. 27 seconds later "SP1 failed to install reverting changes" Hence "Back to square one again".
What to do now? I'm thinking a Clean install now and then try but I'll still have those same drivers loading up, even on that install won't I. Any thoughts? dedet

Hi dedet,

It is possible that the root cause of your problem is the TV combo tuner card. What I suggest is that you physically remove it from your system before installing Vista and SP1. Whilst you are inside your PC, check all connections are secure as problems can ensue from connections that appear to be secure but in fact are not. You can reinstall your card once you have finished your installation. It is possible, though, that you will require an up to date driver for this card in order for it to work with SP1. If you reply with details of the card, i.e. model and manufacturer, I should be able to check if there is an update available and the correct method of installation for it. Please note that this is not guaranteed, and you should resign yourself to the fact that this card, although it worked in Vista, may no longer work in SP1 and can give rise to problems if it is installed in a system with SP1 present.
Dwarf