SOLVED!!

It appears that the UPGRADE / Installation process was disrupted by my
having external hard drives connected to the system. I have two USB external
hard drives (Western Digital Media (something) and a Maxtor (something))
connected to serve as external backup drives. I had the drives connected and
on during the "Advisor" process, and no problem was indicated. However - as
noted in my initial posting - the installation seemed to drag on for hours
(from 6 AM until 9 PM) until I finally gave up.

As I saw some references to problems encounter with external hard drives, I
decided to try the install / upgrade without the drives activated. The
process WORKED! The install took around 3.5 hours. The only OTHER problem was
that after the install, the NETWORK ADAPTER CARD (3-COM) WASN'T recognized
and so I couldn't access the internet any longer (curious since I upgraded
using the "via internet" process(!). I replaced the adapter with a new ~$15
Network Everywhere (Linksys?) adapter and immediately re-established
connectivity.

This upgrade was NOT simple, but it seems to be working after a bit of
messing around.

BTW - it DOESN'T appear that the WD external drive works with VISTA - WD
what's up?

"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?
>
>