Bricked Thinkpad - Windows XP SP3 upgrade (Client Security)

[kev009]

I installed SP3 on my T42 and everything was working well. Then I installed the Client Security Solution "css80webupdate311" to bring my CSS install up to current. The machine bricked and would not boot. Windows would load and simply show a black screen. In safemode, it would stall and wait for security hardware. I think the update touched Windows files that were updated during the SP3 install, so things didn't match up.

To recover from this, I disabled the security hardware in the BIOS and booted to safemode. After a long wait for it to time out, I was able to uninstall SP3 and the machine booted normally.

Just posting in case anyone else runs into this as SP3 will be released soon and it could take some time for Lenovo to update CSS.

For what it's worth, SP3 does install and work fine. I was also able to get it running after installing it again. It was the mixup that the CSS update install caused AFTER SP3 that broke the machine.

[USSS]

Thanks for the heads-up. Did you report your experience to Lenovo? Once SP3 goes officially public, I suspect we'll be hearing about more instances of this issue in this forum.

[kev009]

This kind of thing always happens when an SP comes out. I can think of horror stories with Novell's login scripts and such. SP3 is actually pretty light weight compared to most though.

If anyone has a contact at Lenovo that could give the heads up, let me know. I'd assume that Lenovo is already gearing up for this and Vista SP1 though. Otherwise I suppose it will be sorted out quickly afterwards. Wait a month before installing to be safe.