Microsoft Service Packs?
 

The diagnosis for my latest computer crash is in: I installed the Microsoft Service Pack 4 for Windows 2000.

This popped up in my automatic updates feature, so like an obedient little servant of Bill Gates I clicked on the sucker and spent 4 hours of electricity to download and install it. It asked me if I wanted to reboot now to make them effective, so I did. Surprise surprise, the computer could no longer detect that I had an operating system installed. AND, I could not reinstall the Windows 2000 from the CD because "Windows does not detect that you have a hard drive installed" :mad:

The tech gave me hell for clicking on that "update", he said there was nothing wrong with the Version 3 which came with the computer. But how are we supposed to know? How can an AUTOMATIC UPDATE erase your OS completely, along with all the other settings?

Has anybody else ever had this happen?

Tonchi,

1. Your tech is wrong. Sp3 was obsolete over a year ago. If you had it, you weren't protected against the latest issues.

2. Are you running a workstation or specialized PC? You may need drivers for your hard drive controller, which you need to load at setup. Those can be easily loaded during the setup process (when it asks you to hit F6).

3. Have you attempted to boot from a bootable Windows CD such as BartPE to see if it can detect the hard drive?

I'm sorry, but your tech has no clue, and you should look elsewhere for technical support.

Sp4 has been out since 2003. I run it on a bunch of machines with no issues, many of them being high-usage servers. I run 2000 Pro on one of my work desktops with SP4. I have customers who run it on many desktops (in the thousands). The Sp3 to Sp4 upgrade only messed up a few Proliant servers due to the techs not updating the drivers or BIOS. It did not mess with the desktops.

The Automatic Update did not do this. It was either your tech doing something completely unorthodox (which I do not doubt), or a hardware issue.

Thanks,

Mitch

If you had administrative rights to download something harmful (according to the tech) then it wasn't your fault anyway: you shouldn't have been able to do something that could have been known in advance was supposedly harmful.

Well yeah, it would seem that if there is a chance that a download could completely wipe out access for the OS, there should be some sort of warning or disclaimer. My reasoning was like Mitch said, I must have needed it to make the computer optimally secure. But noooooo....

My computer was running just fine before that download, it had a brand new hard drive and I was putting back the programs which I use. I checked the automatic update link in the Start menu and it said I needed to download that Service Pack. I can understand how I had a problem with the OS which caused the first couple of trips to the shop, after all, the hard drive was 4 years old, and I don't remember if I ever put the #4 download on it when it first came out in 2003.

I did not have an emergency reboot disk, just the original CD which came in the box for Windows 2000 Professional Edition. The computer couldn't do anything with that disk to find the OS.

I have attempted to download service pack 2 twice with disastrous results. I'm sticking with what works for my old dear, here ....

Tonchi,

if it can't find the hard drive, you've got issues with it.

Even brand new hard drives, these days, crap out.

The tech still doesn't know jack about what he's talking about :).

Mitch

I'm inclined to agree with you, Mitch. Where is YOUR shop located? :o

I have no shop.
 

Tonchi,

I'm not a tech anymore :(. Actually, I work in a related, field (Information Security/Assurance and some work in Computer Forensics). I have to know how all this stuff works as part of my job. One of my responsibilities for customers happens to be testing Microsoft patches and establishing patch management, auditing, and security hardening processes for Windows and related products.

Another one of my responsibilities includes data recovery for investigative purposes from hard drives and other sources utilizing approved tools (such as Encase) for two of my customers. This gives me exposure to how to recover data from hard drives using any number of toolsets and equipment.

However, I do call the Philadelphia area home.

Mitch

Keeping a Linux Live CD around is handy for such occasions. Although in this case if you don't see the drive detected in your BIOS something is either wrong with the drive or a cable is loose. Windows might have done something stupid (go figure) but it could be coincidence too.

BartPE and UBCD4Win
 

I use the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows 3.0.

It's got drivers for mostly everything, including SATA drives and RAID arrays (and can be configured for more).

It also lets me run chkdsk on NTFS, which Linux does not :). This has saved my customers' behinds more times than I can count, and also lets me image drives very well.

I have a large customer using this CD to boot "dead" servers and bring them back to operational status very quickly. I used this myself on a dual Xeon running Win2K Advanced Server and SQL Server 2000 to bring it back after a registry hive went corrupt due to old firmware on an HP SmartArray controller not properly syncing things on shutdown.

It also works well for cleaning registry entries and bad files caused by spyware/malware.

While I do like Linux, and utilize it heavily (including a Debian-based distribution for forensics that has dcfldd and many other good drive-duplicating tools on it), a Windows-based CD is also good for the minor fixes. We can't use anything but approved software for drive acquisition, so we do use Linux or Encase for that quite often.

Mitch