WHAT TO DO IF YOUR COMPUTER HANGS OR SHOW A BLACK SCREEN

Your computer hangs or stops responding and displays a black screen
When you try to upgrade to Windows XP, your computer might stop responding (hang) and a black screen might be displayed. This is usually caused by hardware or software that is incompatible with Windows XP.
Note: Before beginning Setup, you should compare your system's hardware to the Hardware Compatibility List. You can also find information about each of your computer's devices (such as printers, scanners, and so on) at the device manufacturer's Web site, in the Windows Catalog:
Text version of the hardware compatibility list (for all operating systems)
Text version of the Hardware compatibility list (for Windows XP only
The Windows Catalog
You can get to all of the above from Windows Hardware and Driver Central
If your computer stops responding and displays a black screen during Setup, follow these steps:
Wait at the black screen for 10 minutes to make sure that the computer does not continue with the Setup procedure. Watch the hard drive indicator to see if there is any disk activity. Setup might resolve the problem on its own.
Restart the computer to see if it stops again at the same place during Setup. Occasionally, Setup will proceed farther than the last time it stopped responding. If this occurs, restart your computer several times so that Setup will finish.
If steps 1 and 2 don't work, to revert back to Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition, restart the computer and choose the option to Cancel Windows XP Setup. If cancelling Windows XP Setup is not an option when you restart your computer, see step 5.
After you revert back to Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition, uninstall all virus protection programs, uninstall all boot manager programs (such as GoBack), and then perform a clean boot of your computer.
If the upgrade fails again, there might be a hardware incompatibility issue. You can try to disable ACPI functionality. To do this, when your computer restarts, watch for an option to press F6 to install SCSI drivers. On this screen, press F7 (not F6).
If Setup continues to stop responding, disable any unnecessary hardware. Remove any USB devices, remove or disable network cards, sound cards, and serial cards, and then restart Setup.
If you continue to receive this error message, you might need to flash (update) the BIOS on the motherboard. Please refer to the manufacturer of your computer or to the motherboard Web site for information about how to flash the BIOS.
Warning: Do not attempt to flash the BIOS unless you are an advanced user. Doing this incorrectly can make your computer unusable.
If a BIOS update does not resolve the issue, or if you are unable to obtain an updated BIOS version for the computer, you might want to install Windows XP with a Standard PC Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL). To do so, press F7 (not F6) when you are prompted to press F6 after Setup restarts the computer for the first time.