The user manual of my motherboard says it needs SP2 to support USB 2.0. (I cannot really understand what the connection is). I managed to get SP2 from a friend recently and with great excitement, tried to install it.
Installation went fine. It replaced whatever files its supposed to replace. It stopped and started whatever services it is supposed to stop and start. Then, it asked the “now familiar” question: Do you want to reboot ? Of course, I responded… and the computer proceeded to boot itself into an SP2 patched XP install with all my data supposedly intact (or so i hoped).
Then, disaster…. On the boot screen, the progress bar stopped moving. Might be a temporary issue, I thought and hit the reset button. Second time, same behavior.
Well, lets try the safe mode, I thought and tried it… it stopped after agp440.sys.
I gave up after two tries, reinstalled XP from scratch, and, tried SP2. Again. Same behaviour.
Googling showed that this is a pretty common issue, something to do with processor microcode, and affects prescott and some other processors. Got the bios upgrade from intel site, and plan to upgrade the bios today.. well, if that fries, gotta think about a new motherboard 
