Problems Upgrading XP Home to XP Pro

[Guest]

I have a new computer (HP Pavilion 450n) that came with XP Home (sp1) that
contains many drivers automatically installed with the system. I need XP Pro.
I have an XP Pro CD (Gold). I did a winnt32.exe /checkupgradeonly and it
said no incompatibilities existed.
When I try to upgrade to XP Pro - it goes through Preparing Installation and
the Progress bar fills completely. Then it restarts, but after displaying
the Windows Logo I get a black screen and nothing (even if I wait 1/2 hour).
If I try to restart and boot from CD, again I get the Windows Logo, it
retries, completes copying all the files and then restarts, displays the
Windows Logo and then goes to black screen and stays there.
I don't want to do a new install because I won't have all the drivers.
Help!

 

[Guest]

All the special driver files and utilities will be available as downloads
from HP.

Did you buy the Windows XP Pro Upgrade edition? Don't know about 'Gold': is
this a copy CD given by a friend?

Make sure you use a Windows XP Pro Upgrade edition to take you from Home to
Pro. This should work without any problems, and you won't need to get any
files from HP.

 

[D.Currie]

I have a new computer (HP Pavilion 450n) that came with XP Home (sp1) that
contains many drivers automatically installed with the system. I need XP
Pro.
I have an XP Pro CD (Gold). I did a winnt32.exe /checkupgradeonly and it
said no incompatibilities existed.
When I try to upgrade to XP Pro - it goes through Preparing Installation
and
the Progress bar fills completely. Then it restarts, but after displaying
the Windows Logo I get a black screen and nothing (even if I wait 1/2
hour).
If I try to restart and boot from CD, again I get the Windows Logo, it
retries, completes copying all the files and then restarts, displays the
Windows Logo and then goes to black screen and stays there.
I don't want to do a new install because I won't have all the drivers.
Help!

If you've got SP1 on home and Pro is the original, that might be the
problem. Then again, I've found HPs and their customized software to be a
royal pain. There's always something quirky.

You might be best off formatting and installing clean. You can get all the
drivers from HP, but chances are XP will recognize most of what's in there,
anyway. But you would lose any custom programs HP had installed.

However, if you've got the Pro upgrade, you'd need qualifying media to do
the upgrade, and the HP doesn't come with install CDs. So your choice,
during installation, would be to start with the original Home installed,
then choose to delete the partition and do a clean install. That way, XP
will have already verified the original installation, but you'll still end
up with a clean install.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your responses. I know I can get most of the drivers and
utilities from HP, but thought it would be easier to do the upgrade and not
have to do all the installations.
The XP Pro is a 2002 version that Microsoft (No, apparently no friend of
mine!) gave me at a conference a few years back.
Apparently there is not supposed to be a difference in the actual files on
the disk between the upgrade and full except that the CD key tells it which
it is able to install. (So I've heard). So mine should work.
It could be the SP1 of XP Home and the no service pack on XP Pro. I could
try to slipstream it. I tried installing both with dynamic updates and
without and both give the same reaction - black screen, dead keyboard and
mouse - nothing.
I did do the upgrade compatibility test and it came back with no
incompatibilities, but it looks like I will have to do a clean install.
Unfortunately, I will also lose some programs from HP that they don't have
available as downloads (thanks MS!).

If anyone else has had this problem, please let me know.

Marilyn