After system recovery startup loops to boot menu

HP a1610n Media Center edition 2007
Lost internet connection and Network Adapters missing from Device Manager so could not load new driver. Saved files and decided to do system recovery from D:. Recovery worked OK but ended up in SP2 so updated to SP3. Now startup takes me to boot menu. I can get into Safe Mode but all others revert to boot menu.
Any help would be much appreciated.

 

http://support.hp.com/us-en/product...series/470559/model/1101490/document/bph07145

did you follow the video on how to perform a system recovery on an HP??

you might be able to create some recovery disks, see below link if they can be made from safe mode:

http://support.hp.com/us-en/product...eries/3686675/model/3696839/document/bph08097

 

When I tried to upgrade to sp3, I used another computer to copy the sp3 upgrade file to a USB thumb drive because the DVD drive on this machine has failed.

After reading your post about creating recovery discs, I replaced the IDE DVD drive with a generic IDE I had, however, when trying to write files I got an error message to the effect that it did not see the drive it expected. So I removed a SATA drive from another HP machine I have and tried it. It is recognized and working so I am in the process of creating recovery disks.

Once I am recovered I will only have sp2. Can you suggest a way to get sp3 and all updates. I don't think Microsoft will help on XP.

Thanks for you suggestions

 

you cannot install xp on a sata drive without first integrating the sata controllers onto an install cd or pendrive of xp.

microsoft updates will not work without sp3 being installed, once you are set up with your xp install at sp2, you can manually install sp3 , which can be installed from a flash drive.

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you should also install an antivirus with an offline database before going online.

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once sp3 is installed you will go to start, all programs and at the top you will see windows updates, click on this and you will get to the updates website, which will ask you to install a few things first, like the latest windows update agent and microsoft updates active x and the latest windows installer which is 4.5, then you can scan your pc for the updates, there will be approx 200, so just install 50 or so at a time.

xp updates will still be available for a long time yet, microsoft's non support means that no new updates will be issued.

 

Thanks for your suggestions. I recovered to the original 2006 sp2 which did just as expected. I then upgraded to sp3 which seemed to be working just fine until I finished and tried to boot. It only lets me into safe mode. Do you have a suggestion for me?

 

I solved my problem. I learned the following from an HP site:
After installing the initial release of Service Pack 3 for Windows XP an error condition can occur. The Service Pack 3 update copies an Intel power management driver to the computer that was not on the computer before the update. During Windows startup, computers with AMD processors will not normally boot.
The power management driver is intellpmm.sys. I renamed it to xxxintelpmm.sys and all is well.
Thanks again for all your suggestions.

 

My mistake, I forgot about the above fact. glad all is well now.