I recently upgraded to WinXP Home edition. The installation was successful. During a normal startup/bootup process I will see the black WinXP Home screen with the little green dots crossing and subsequently the WinXP blue user name screen appears. Now, quite frequently, the computer stops at the black screen and won't continue. When I power down and restart I get a menu that says to select NORMAL or TO THE LAST SUCCESSFUL BOOT. Can anyone suggest a solution as to why this is happening. Thanks, John

You probably have some corrupted software loaded into your startup folder. In Windows XP, go to Start, Run, type in MSCONFIG and then click on OK. Now click on the Startup tab and remove the check marks out of any item that is not needed to load during Windows startup. Now click apply and then OK and reboot.

If you have any questions on this procedure, please feel free to contact me for further guidance.

If Cremedies advice doesn't work I would also try running SFC and CHKDSK. To run SFC insert your windows XP Home CD into the cd rom drive. Then go to the START->Run icon and type SFC /Scannow. This checks the computer for any protected files that have been changed or removed. CHKDSK has to be run from the recovery console. If you boot up your computer with the XP CD in the drive you should see an option that says "Press any key to boot from CD..." If not then you will have to change the boot sequence in the bios. (Just ask if you need help doing this.) After the computer has finished booting you should have a blue screen with an option to press "R" to use the recovery console. Press "R". You should then have a black screen in front of you that will eventually have text asking you to select an install of windows to log into. There should only be one so press "1". If it asks for an administrator password then you will have to type this in now. After you have logged in type CHKDSK. This will then start running the check disk function. I have found that this fixes many problems. If you have any questions while doing any of this always ask. While it is fairly safe to do you can mess up your system a little bit if you play around tooooooo much. Just make sure you read your screen however and you are generally OK.

One simple question: you upgraded to XP-Home edition - from which previous version?
A lot of software and drivers are incompatible from say, WIN98 or WINME to WINXP - and will occasionally cause startup problems.
You may have to reinstall or upgrade all those too.