Well, there is a delay at one point during the install where one sees just
the cursor on a blank, black screen. It takes some time to get through that
point but it does end, usually. With only 512mb of RAM, your computer would
probably take quite some time. I'm not sure I would load Vista on a machine
that was limited to only 512mb or RAM. Vista wants 1GB to work well.

"stevesl" wrote:

> I am trying to upgrade my older PC's operating system from XP (Home Edition-
> service Pack 2) to Vista Home Premium. I've run the Upgrade Advisor and
> performed all Pre-installation tasks (removed Roxio, disabled virus
> detection, etc.). The Advisor indicates that Vista will run on the system -
> although the maximum memory is limited to 512MB.
>
> The install / upgrade seemed to progress nomally - although it took several
> hours - but following one of the system install reboots, all that was
> displayed was a blank (black) screen with the white mouse pointer - nothing
> else. After 8 hours of "waiting for something to happen", I concluded that
> the install failed and restored XP(fortunately).
>
> Any thoughts / suggestions as to what went wrong and how I might proceed?
>
>