Windows XP, I have discovered, is very temperamental about many of your peripheral devices when you are first trying to load it up. You should remove as many of your external devices as possible when you prepare to install, and then if the install hangs up when you try, I have found that sometimes it's simply a matter of uninstalling your sound and/or graphic cards before installing XP, and then reinstalling them after XP is loaded. I tried for a week to get past a hangup on the installation of XP before I found that I could get the installation to go all the way through after I removed my graphics card. Once XP was installed, I could reinstall my graphics card and it worked fine, but for some reason, it messed up the installation. Try removing any graphic, sound, net or modem cards you may have installed before you install XP.
