XP will not finish installing after reboot

I had installed windows xp on a windows 98 computer. no problem, until i was running updates. the power got interrupted, and when it got reconnected the screen was black. I re-installed xp, but when it gets to the point of re-booting to finish the installation, i get a black screen, with "press any key to continue." If i press any key, it does not finish the installation, it starts a new installation. If i don't press a key, it just stays on the black screen forever! I can still install windows 98, just not the complete xp. is there something i can do to finish the xp installation? thank you very much.

Do you have a Full version Disk of XP ? or an "Upgrade" version ? Do you have XP drivers for your motherboard and the various components ? If not, then even if you get through the Install, it may not boot. The error "press any key" is a Fatal-error. Which means that all work has stopped, and when you respond, the system will be re-booted. If your CD drive is the first boot device, then you will see the "press any key to boot from cd." Either ignore it, or try ejecting the CD after it starts booting, and see what happens when it must boot from the HD. If it goes well, then it will ask for the CD again, at which point, you push it back in. Tallon41 [edit: on a side note: after the power loss you may have been able to boot into 'safe mode' and used "system restore" to recover from your issue. Since you began another install / upgrade, that option is no longer available to you. I've found that It is always best to ask for help before taking "corrective action" on your own.]

thank you tallon41, but i figured it out…i had to go back in and change the bios, so that when it rebooted it did it from the hard drive and not the cd. it continued and finished the installation. btw…i wouldn't have been able to restart in safe mode after the power interruption…all i had was a black screen.

I know that this post is a few months old, but I'm having the same issues with no solution yet. There are no problems with the partitions or any hardware, and I have all of the necessary drivers. This is an old Dell machine, and the only drivers I need to install separately are for the graphics and sound cards. I insert the XP install disc (not an upgrade), and go through the setup process until it copies the necessary files and reboots. At this point, nothing else happens; the screen stays black. I have moved the HDD to the top of the boot sequence and removed the CD from the drive before continuing. This does not solve anything. I gave up on it for a while and just put Vista on that partition to run diagnostics and look for solutions, but some of my hardware is not Vista-compatible. I have a drive image for the original XP installation created with Paragon Drive Backup that I had hoped to use to restore everything once I got XP installed, but I can't get to that point if XP won't finish installing.

Orlac, welcome to WTT. Please start a new thread using the data you have already provided and we'll work on the problem there. This may seem petty but it's really not. It will make it easier for other folks here to notice your post and contribute to fixing your problem. Also, when you start your new thread, please indicate if you are doing a full format during the install or not. If not, you can try that to see if it makes any difference.