by I just got snagged by this. I have seen postings indicating that the
problem is non-recoverable on a Dell PC but I managed to recover. To
summarise:
- installed SP3
- rebooted
- PC boots, gets to "preparing network connections"
- PC boots
- repeats ad nauseam
To get out of this, I just booted in safe mode with network support,
backed up stuff held on the local machine to another machine on the
network, went to Control Panel/Add/Remove Programs, selected Windows
2000 Service pack 3, and then removed it. Machine booted fine after
that.
Can't find anything on MS site re this as a known problem. Shameful
really. They should pull it.