Cannot Install SP2 on Vista

[DodgerKing]

Vista will not let me install SP2. It says I must install SP1 first. SP1 is already installed. When I go to install SP1 it states it is already installed and won't let me install it. I tried to remove SP1 before I install SP2, but it is nowhere to be found in the view installed updates.

Catch22: Cannot install something until I install something else that is already there but cannot be found. :rant:

This again, is an issue with the same piece of junk laptop I have. My wife's laptops and all three of my desk tops have yet to have any issues with Vista. This laptop I am currently typing on has one problem after another. (I even fixed hard drive errors and corruptions yesterday)

Any other suggestions? I have been trying to fix this issue all day yesterday. I cannot do any other updates until I do my SP2 update first.

 

[Van]

Who's the manufacturer of the laptop? You may be left having to do a restore of the hard drive but if you have issues with corruptions and errors on the drive then the drive is going bad and you should replace it as what your seeing is common to drive failure ( been there done that ).

 

[DodgerKing]

It is an old HP nx9600. The thing is a monster: 17" screen, over 10 lbs, and uses 180W power supply. It is owned by my employer so I will not put in any of my own money into getting a new HD. I am going to buy another laptop in the next couple of months though.

The other issue is that because it is Vista, there is no restore disc.

 

[Van]

Well with it being an employer owned tool I'd take it in to them listing the issues and what I brought up and I'm sure that some of the other resident IT guru's we have will weigh in on the subject and probably agree that your problems are centering around the hard drive being a lemon. I'm surprised though that there is no restore directory on the drive, I have it on my hp pavy desktop and its in a 1 gig partition.

 

[DodgerKing]

Well with it being an employer owned tool I'd take it in to them listing the issues and what I brought up and I'm sure that some of the other resident IT guru's we have will weigh in on the subject and probably agree that your problems are centering around the hard drive being a lemon. I'm surprised though that there is no restore directory on the drive, I have it on my hp pavy desktop and its in a 1 gig partition.

IT won't touch it because it is Vista. Vista is not an approved OS. I installed Vista myself about 2 years ago.

 

[Poke]

Ok 1st do you have SP1 back on machine??

 

[DodgerKing]

Ok 1st do you have SP1 back on machine??

Yes.

 

[Poke]

Ok since you still have SP1 on your machine please check and see what the stauts of the "Windows Activation" is.

 

[DodgerKing]

It is active. That is not the issue. I have been using it for a couple of years.

 

[LER]

Have you tried calling Microsoft?