Windows XP forum: XP Pro x64 setup freezes at "Setup is Starting Windows"

This may be a blessing in disguise.

For starters, XP is a dead end platform, with the death clock rapidly ticking down the final few moments of XP's life. The x64 version of XP died a couple of years ago before SP3 came out. So it would be a rather foolhardy idea to install this onto a system that will be actively connected to the Internet.

Second, I'm guessing from your post that you neglected to ensure that there are XP x64 drivers for all the hardware on that laptop. Hardware support for XP x64 was always anemic at best, and no, Windows does not come with this magical library of drivers for every bit of hardware under the sun, contrary to what a lot of people seem to think. And yes, there is a difference; 32-bit drivers WILL NOT WORK with a 64-bit OS. So it is not enough to simply have XP drivers, you need to make sure they are 64-bit XP drivers.

Third, with only 2GB of RAM, you're not really going to see any benefit from a 64-bit OS. I'm not sure why, it must be something in the male psyche where we always assume bigger is better, but for the most part, there's little noticeable difference between a 32-bit and 64-bit OS for the average user. It's not like because a 64-bit OS can process 2X as many bits at a time it's 2X faster. Things don't work that way.

So at the very least you have two major technical problems to contend with assuming you fix your current problem which is really quite trivial, all you need to do is format the drive. However it won't help you with the drivers issue or the fact that XP x64 was effectively killed off after SP2. It never made it to SP3 or post-SP3 like the 32-bit version, making it extremely dangerous to connect to the Internet. Personally, I'd suggest rethinking the whole thing. An older laptop like that might make for a good platform to learn Linux on. Or you could reload whatever OS came with it, probably the x86 version of XP. Unlike it's x64 sibling, the x86 version is still on life support for about another year and a half.

XP knows nothing about SATA drives, but since that is well discussed I won't cover this except to ask how you enabled this for this OS.
Bob