That would be me. I crashed the whole computer. I called Microsoft, and after six calls, they took responsiblility, and put me on the phone with data retrieval, and after a week of phone tag, we were able to retrieve all my files from my dead computer, and then reinstall my operating system and then put all files back into their places. At first they told me all was lost, and to just reinstall Windows XP and that all my files were gone. This was not so. But, I still don't have SP2 installed. The tech told me to read the link below and follow the instructions of what to do BEFORE I install SP2 . I have been "vewy vewy afwaid" to attempt it. But before I do, I will save all my files to CD "before" the big crash. Good luck if you attempt to do it. Many people have had problems. Here is a link that might be useful: Before you install SP2, read this

Using the good computer you can go to Kaspersky and download their Rescue disc software. This is 197 megs of data. Then burn it to a CD as an .iso. Start the older computer, enter the BIOS and reset the boot order to have the CD/DVD as the first choice. Save and exit. Insert the CD, restart and follow the prompts. This will start the program and you will be prompted to allow the computer to connect to the Kaspersky site to obtain the latest definitions and then scan for and remove the bad guys.

OK. You need to focus on getting windows up date working first before anything, The next thing to try is running System file checker, To run the System File Checker, complete these steps: 1. Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box. 2. In the results area, right-click cmd.exe, and then click Run as administrator. You will be prompted to type the password for an administrator account. Click Continue if you are the administrator or type the administrator password. Then, click Continue. 3. At the command prompt, type Sfc /scannow, and then press ENTER.

This is an update to the sp1 info. Susan Bradley in the latest windows secrets newsletter said there are 2 new updates to do to prepare for sp1 if you have not done it yet, this is to help prevent some of those issues that were listed above. from her article Quote: "Microsoft released two patches to fix problems with Windows 7's infamous first service pack. Both should be installed before updating to Win7 SP1. KB 2533552 corrects a flaw that produces a failed SP1 update, leaving users with a cryptic error code (shown in Figure 1) and a difficult recovery. Systems that received SP1 through Windows Software Update Services were hit particularly hard, as noted in a TechNet blog. KB 2534366 fixes an issue with multiple language packs; some systems would hang at a black screen after SP1 was installed. If you haven't already successfully installed Windows 7 SP1, install both KB 2534366 and KB 2533552 first. And if Win7 SP1 is already installed, accept KB 2533552 for future service packs. Yes, it's true; I'm finally ready to give the all-clear for Windows 7 SP1 but only after you've accepted KB 2533552 and KB 2534366, as noted above. Rather than using Windows Update, I urge you to download and install the SP1 update manually to make sure it's successfully added." and the latest list of her recommendations for windows patches list Regularly updated problem-patch chart and the link to sp1 direct download SP1 she mentions to allocate about an hour for this.