I am uprgrading a PC from Windows XP Home Edition to Windows 8 release preview.

The compatability checker and downloading stages etc. went fine.

However, after it said it was installing and it got to 100%, it rebooted the system only to receive the following the error:

Your PC needs to restart.
Please hold down the power button.
Error Code: 0x0000005C
Parameters:
0x00000110
0xFFDO9B50
0x00000019
0xC0000001

I tried restarting but the same problem occurs.

I believe you must mean you clean installed from Win XP to Win 8 RP (beta)

See if this article from the MSDN will help.

I did not format my hard drive, then ran an installer which is self-bootable. The installer began working within the XP OS.

I'll go and have a look at the article now.

Part of your problems might be with your installation method. MS states there is not an upgrade path from within Win XP that works effectively. Since this is a beta OS a clean install is the recommended procedure. If you start finding other problems cropping up do not be surprised. These strange, unexplained errors are often the result of improper installations.

right ok, well the MDSN article suggests uprgrading BIOS firmware. I'll have to have a think about that one.

I do have a disc that the OEM supplied which can restore my PC back to the factory image. However,if the BIOS upgrade goes wrong then even that won't bring things back to life.

I may as well try an see if I can format the disk and install Windows 8 from scratch; since the orignal Windows XP is probably unrecovorable now.

It probably is a hardware error since although the graphics card, RAM and hardrive have been upgraded, the CPU and motherboard may not be up to it. The CPU is only an Intel Celeron 3.06GHZ.

I'm not going to do any more work on it for another 24 hours or so.

although WIndows 8 works on tablets and they must have fairly low specs.