Ive got a Dell E520 desktop computer running XP Home but im trying to install XP Pro onto it instead. Ive managed this on my other computers. What happens: I put the CD into the computer and boot it up, pressing F12 to enter setup and choose boot from CD ROM. The screen turns blue like it should and the drivers load at the bottom of the screen. Then it says Windows Is Starting at the bottom of the blue screen. Then that dreaded blue screen with the white writing appears and says windows detected a problem and shutdown. Whys it doing this. How can I install Pro without this happening? Ive tried XP Home CD and Vista and they both work without the error screen.

Have you used FDisk?

Format Disk? I would format the hard disk but the only way I know how to do it is by putting the OS disk in and starting up from CD ROM. I cant get far enough to format the disk.

Fdisk is not Format Disk. It's an old DOS command that allows you to partition HDD space. You don't need that with XP. Are you sure the CD is not damaged? Are you using a Dell Reinstall CD with a green or purple label? "So won’t you give this man his wings What a shame To have to beg you to see We’re not all the same What a shame" - Shinedown

Its a new XP Pro disk. Its not from a computer manufacturer. The disk isnt damaged as ive installed it onto 3 other machines without a problem. Ill try typing Fdisk into DOS. As its the blue screen I guessing its a hardware problem, something not quite compatible between the CD drivers and Hardware. Thnaks

Start up your existing XP Home installation and try your optical drive and make sure it works correctly. Use a laser lens cleaning CD in the drive. If that's okay, Windows Setup is very sensitive to even tiny amounts of errors reading the ram, even if you had not noticed a problem in Windows. A common thing that can happen with ram, even ram that worked fine previously, is the ram has, or has developed, a poor connection in it's slot(s). This usually happens a long time after the ram was installed, but it can happen with new ram, or after moving the computer case from one place to another, and I've had even new modules that needed to have their contacts cleaned. See response 2 in this - try cleaning the contacts on the ram modules, and making sure the modules are properly seated: http://www.computing.net/hardware/w... For a laptop, you must remove both its main battery and AC adapter before you do that.

"I put the CD into the computer and boot it up, pressing F12 to enter setup and choose boot from CD ROM." Try setting CD drive first in the bios boot sequence. Then power up 'without' using F12.