The title says it all…
When I installed SP3 the first time, the machine kept trying to boot XP, but failed at the point the blue bars travel across the screen. Eventually I had to use System Restore.
Juding from your previous posts the system is quite infected needing an expert malware remover like essexboy or oldman.
Or, reforrnat, and re-install and start off from a nice clean slate. 
what i’m talking about is actually from a couple years ago, when my computer was basically a virgin. then, later, I asked a friend about it and he was having the same problem. Haven’t had the guts to try to install it again because of the error.
It doesn’t help the situation that my dad is basically the hitler of anti-virus.
Quote ‘The only time my computer didn’t run well was when there was an anti-virus program running’
But then again, He hasn’t really used a computer for anything but looking for manuals on our appliances since the days of Windows 98… He probably wouldn’t know one of the viruses that are common today if it hit him in the face.
Are you stating that this computer has no protection ???
I have Avast! MBAM, and SAS this is my own computer.
Any good free firewalls you’d reccomend, though?
I use PCTools Firewall Plus so that’s my recommendation and it’s free.
Thanks!
It’s free & easy on computer resources.
It’s great firewall protection.
Check my sig. below, I use it on both computers.
@ bran34
In another topic you stated you had an HP. If that’s the case, are you current on HP (and Microsoft, except for SP3) updates? There are also pre-requisites for installing SP3 on a OEM system. Check with the HP site for your model.
Yes, I am current on my updates, and it has the model number on the front of the case.
Does it have a AMD processor and is this an HP computer ? If so there’s a small program on HP’s site to fix this problem.
Make sure to run this before you install SP3.
Wish I’d have known about this a loong time ago. Yes, I do have an athlon as a matter of fact… :
Now I just need to clean up my PC.
Gonna run an avast full scan overnight, see if it picks anything up.
I see that you now have more than 20 posts which will permit you to update your profile to include signature information.
Go to PROFILE then Modify Profile then Forum Profile Information then Signature: and put information about your system if you like just like my sigature.
Go to Secunia Online Software Inspector then run it to see what other applications are vulnerable:
http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/online