Upgrade parallels / boot camp to XP SP3 and avoid autochk error

I have a macbook pro. I have Windows XP SP2 installed and running under Boot Camp. I access the same VM from parallels version 3, build 5636. My version of bootcamp is 2.1 - i recently installed this from the Boot Camp startup. Windows xp2 sp2 is working fine from both boot camp and parallels interfaces.

The short of it is, i installed xp sp3, and got it running in bootcamp, only to receive the infamous autochk error in parallels. I restored my backup partition to pre-sp3 status and have SP2 running again. I'd like to know what steps i need to take to upgrade SP3 for both bootcamp and parallels and and avoid the autochk mess altogether.

Details of my failed first attempt at successful sp3 upgrade are below. Any advice would be much appreciated.

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I booted xp sp2 through boot camp, and upgraded to sp3 through windows updates. When finished, it prompted me to reboot the machine.

I rebooted to boot camp, and got only a black screen - let it bake for 15 minutes just to be sure, and then hard stopped the machine.

I restarted and booted into bootcamp again, and this time, it booted just fine.

I shut down, and restarted in mac os, then got into parallels - and received the autochk error.

Since I had a working disk image, i went ahead and restored my win partition to previous XP SP2 working condition.
How to upgrade to SP3 and avoid the autochk error altogether?

 

I would suggest the easiest way here:
1. Boot to Mac, start Parallels and uninstall Parallels Tools. You can even delete the virtual machine after that since boot camp partition is not affected in this case.
2. Boot to Windows natively and install the Service Pack you wish, just as on usual Windows machine.
3. When done and Service Pack is working, boot to Mac again, start Mac and create a new virtual machine based on a boot camp partition.

 

Joe,

Please post the result of the procedure for upgrading to XP3. I'm in the same situation (had some failed attempts) and I'd want to know if this one works.

Thank you!