Just got Sony Vaio TR3A with XP Home on it. Put XP Pro CD in and started to upgrade. About halfway through it restarts and continues in a loop - 39 minutes to 34 minutes then restart, 39 minutes to 34 minutes, restart. Now can't get back to XP Home or complete install of XP Pro ??

I believe that's about the time that XP "registers devices". Make sure all external devices are unplugged including any PCMCIA cards. Also, did you do a compatibility check before you upgraded? There are a few devices and programs that need to be uninstalled before you load XP and reinstalled after. Musky Always assume pilot error!

Click on the link below to read Sony Knowledgebase Article 277389 LINK Excerpts: What are the procedures and guidelines when upgrading a computer that shipped with the Windows XP Home to the Windows XP Pro OS? SOLUTION: Follow these guidelines when upgrading to the XP Pro OS. IMPORTANT: * Upgrading from Windows XP Home with Service Pack 1 (SP1) to XP Pro without service pack 1 is not supported. Contact Microsoft for a XP Pro with Service Pack 1 upgrade CD. * Download all updates in advance and save them to the hard drive for later installation. * Sony strongly recommends using the default XP Pro operating system installation option to upgrade the Home operating system. This will allow the majority of the existing configuration settings and options to be imported to the new operating system. * If a clean install of the XP Pro operating system is performed on a computer that does not include recovery CDs, the recovery media must be created before formatting the hard drive. * If the hard drive has been formatted and the special recovery partition is still available, perform a system recovery on the computer, create the recovery media, and then continue the clean install process. * Sony does not support dual boot configurations. * The XP Pro operating system must be installed in the C:\Windows\ folder. * VAIO computers bundled with the XP Home operating system which are upgraded to the XP Pro operating system may utilize the original Application Recovery CDs (ARCDs) and Driver Recovery CDs (DRCDs) to reinstall Sony drivers and applications. Due to the common core between the two operating systems, the same drivers and applications will work in both versions. HTH * When a clean install of the XP Pro OS is installed on a VAIO computer, all the drivers from the Driver Recovery CD (DRCD) must be installed, including the Sony Shared Library, before the Application Recovery CD (ARCD) can be used to reinstall the bundled applications. i_XpUser

Great! Now I'm stuck in the middle of an install and can't go back! I've upgraded dozens of pc's and laptops from home to pro, first problem I've ever encountered, looks like it's down to Sony - how well publicised is that?! Can anyone help further then - I only have an original XP Pro CD, not one with SP1 on it. I need a resolve now, no time to be requesting one from MS and waiting 3 months for it to arrive. Is there a way of getting SP1 onto a CD along with my XP Pro CD? Assume if I can do this somehow the install will continue? Coz it seems like I can't get out the install loop otherwise.