Installed SP1 - Continuous reboots

[ZR1]

Issue:

• SP1 showed up on Automatic Updates yesterday, so I figured I may as well take the plunge.
• "Configuring Updates Stage 3" then system reboots
• and reboots
• rinse, repeat, reboot

Research:

• Found KB949358 describing the issue and possible resolutions
• Found Bleeping Computer's tutorial (Using System Restore from the Vista Windows Recovery Environment)
• Read 11ty5 articles off of Google claiming it was a beta/RC1 issue and doesn't occur anymore.
• Found this forum

Steps:

• Safe Mode options...still reboots
• System Recovery from install DVD - the "Select an operating system to repair" window does not have any Operating Systems listed in it. Therefore the "System Restore" does fails when I get to that screen.
• Load drivers lets me navigate the drives. But not locating drivers anywhere.
• Searching online for a driver for a Maxtor 7h500f0 (500GB SATA), but no such animal.
• The command prompt lets me navigate around, except for my C: drive, which it says is corrupted.
• I can successfully perform a CHKDSK on the C: drive from the command line.

The data was backed up a couple of weeks ago, plus I can always reinstall the OS on a new drive then get my data later off the current Maxtor drive.

There's also Microsoft's "renaming the pending.xml file, whuch has the likelihood of crippling the system and needing a reinstall of the OS anyway.

I guess it comes down to cost/benefit of a given action. Reinstalling the OS is just a time factor. Especially when looking at reinstalling all the applications again. Fortunately, the Vista box isn't my sole computer and I can continue on the other boxes. Makes me wonder how people with one computer try to fix things; paying Geek Squad I suppose.

Back to the issue at hand:

• Is there any fixes I'm overlooking?
• Should I just start the clean install and call it a day?
• What's the best way to avoid this next time and safely install SP1?
• Or should I be waiting a little longer on SP1?

[Miykle]

G'Day ZR1 , Had a few issues with sp1 when I tried to load it as an update, I do think the problem lies in the updater (??), ended up setting mine to manual, in services, then saved SP1 directly to disc and loaded it from there, that worked good, had that reboot issue with a few updates, not just sp1, can you get into safe mode and uninstall sp1 and set updater to manual ??,
If you do get it installed correctly it is worth the hassel as it rectifies several issues, when it done do this in cmd. ..Vsp1cln.exe...this will clean up install.
blessings Miykle