Call or email Dell (Contact us, above right). If you know someone with the same version of the OS on a Dell, you can borrow their CD. Alternative, though not free: buy a retail copy of XP.

When I try to use the "Contact Us" link and my Service Tag, I am told that my "Home warranty support has expired". So what you are telling me is that Dell customers must request a copy of an XP startup CD during the warranty period, because if they need one after the warranty expires, they are out of luck?

They will provide the CD after warranty - call.

I have resolved the problem. I found a friend that has a Windows XP bootable CD. I used it to bring up the Recovery Console. First, I tried the procedure "How to recover from a corrupted registry that prevents Windows XP from starting". (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/EN-US/) That did not help, then I followed the following procedure to replace the NTDETEXT file, and that solved my problem. "How do I replace the ntdetect.com file if it is missing or corrupted in Microsoft® Windows® XP? http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?c=us&cs=19&dl=false&l=en&s=dhs&docid=D960E9F0020F4641BEBA2308D426182B