sp2 E_FAIL 0x80004005

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From what I gather, sp2 fails to install due to GRUB being my boot manager.

If anyone has found a work around...besides ditching Vista...please share
it.

Unplugging a drive isn't an option...I have 5 OS's on 2 drives managed by
GRUB.

I believe GRUB was written to the MBR.

You could try restoring the Vista boot sector and MBR. After SP2 is
installed fix grub from a Live Linux CD.

Yeah, I have tried that.

Problem is , Vista is on the second HD ... so after using bootrec /fixmbr
and /fixboot ... I get a No OS(or no BootMgr) found message after rebooting.

Turning the first HD off in the BIOS and using bootrec doesn't work either.

My only option after that is to repair grub.

sda1=XP
sda2=Debian
sda3=Suse
sda4=Swap
sdb1=Vista
sdb2=Fedora

A very disorganized layout...but the 2 MS OS's I gave very large chunks of
space to.

Thanks for the help.

After the bootsect /fixmbr and /fixboot did you try booting from the Vista
DVD and using the repair option? Sometimes you have to do this twice.

I feel your pain. I triple boot Windows 7, Server 2008, and Suse 11.0 with
grub for the boot manager on my laptop. I haven't installed SP2 for Server
2008 because of this problem. I don't have time to play with it. If you find
a way please let us know. It's even worse with some OEM installs. The
nonstandard boot record to facilitate the factory throws the same error when
installing SP2. In these cases they don't have any Windows media to boot
from to try to work around the problem.

Backup GRUB info and then overwrite GRUB and restore it after the install.

Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 service pack installation fails
with error 0x80004005:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971204/

You were correct.

I turned off the non-Vista HD.

Then from the Vista DVD, ran /fixboot followed by /fixmbr ... rebooted just
to check.
Missing BootMgr.

From the DVD, ran StartUp Repair...restart...Missing BootMgr.

From the DVD, ran StartUp Repair once more...Booted from Vista!
Installed sp2.

Restart...turn hd0 back on.

From LiveCD...
su
grub
grub> find /boot/grub/grub.conf
grub> root (hd0,1)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> quit

All is well.
Thanks for the "be persistent" advice.

I'm sure you never ever had a reader more hopefully following a thread
like this.

Since SP2 was released, I tried to install it on my Notebook ASUS X50GL.
This chic piece of streamlined packaged silicon was originally equipped
with 2 operating systems: Vista Home Premium (w/o SP1, IIRC) and a tiny
extreme quickly booting ASUSmodified Linux with the nice nick Express
Gate. Later on I made room for a parallel install of openSUSE 11.1.
GRUB manages Vista and SUSE, and the alternative Express Gate on a
hidden partition is reached via a hot key.

Everytime I tried to bring in SP2, the result was "Could not install the
SP2. All modifications to the system will be resetted now." Actually
this was featured in German language. Reading the precious MS-KB,
playing through each and every combination of solutions offered there,
and some homebrewed I filtered out of netwhispering, brought no relief,
until I found this thread, raising my suspicion: "GRUB could spit into
my soup".

Long story told shortly: This was the villain.

I could remove GRUB with a tool onboard, w/o using an install CD. Boot
Windows from GRUB-menu, and _immidiatly_ press F8 to reach the
Bootoptions-Menu. Select "Repare Computer".

On my system an empty window popped up, designed to pick an operating
system to fix. I went further (Next). Here I chose "Repare Startup".
That's it. After reboot Vista is on and now installing the looked-for
SP2 could be installed w/o further laments.

After this action I have to reinstall GRUB. This could be done in
various ways. I will do it via openSUSE-DVD ("Boot any installed
system") and replay GRUB via YAST2 as I did it many times before on
different systems.

Thanks for your inspiration.