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I have an old single processor Pentium-class machine (with XP) I want to retire, but it has a development I need to retain for the purposes of maintenance of some customer's systems. I created a a VHD using disk2vhd, and tried to start a new VM in VB. All I get is the white stripe across the black screen, and then nothing.

Try changing the HDD controller to the PIIX4 in the guest settings
While you are there change the vRDP port as it is conflicting on bootup as well.

Made the changes to the hard disk access and turned off RDP. Still no joy!

Turn Settings>System>Motherboard 'Enable IO APIC' on.

Getting much closer
Now I have an error on loading the Windows configuration

Is this a 32 bit version of XP?
If so turning on IO APIC is going to force it into SMP with Version 3.0.x of VBox.
Which means you are going to need to change a few files in the Windows Guest.
Try booting in safe mode and then open the device manager and see if you can update to a multiprocessor
drop this in Google enable smp on windows XP site:forums.virtualbox.org

Typically I do not suggest turning on IO APIC myself on a pre-installed copy of 32 bit version of Windows because unless you have a backup of the VHD/VDI it may be that you will need to recreate it to get it to work.

The real trick to getting these to work is to make sure that you copy down the settings of the guest that was used in the original host and make sure that you set the VBox guest settings the same. Then it simply works. Have you tested the clone in MS VPC and does it work there?

Here's the background:
The guest is a 32-bit Windows, from a single processor box.
The host is a dual processor box, running XP in 32-bit.
The processor setting in VB is 1 processor (mandated by VB)
I have not tried this VHD in MS virtual PC; I'm trying to get away from that application!

I have not tried this VHD in MS virtual PC; I'm trying to get away from that application!

I totally understand, but the application that you created this with was intended to be used with VPC. My thinking was if it was going to work anywhere it should work there right?
Then if it does you can copy the settings and use VBox and if it does not work in VPC then you will know it was not cloned properly.

It did not work in MS VM, so the problem must lie in the creation of the vhd file. I've run it three times, the last with the change made to the XP on the PC to turn on SMP for use in VB. So now I'm stumped. Other that disk2vhd, any suggestions for creatin a vhd from a current PC?

You could use something like Clonezilla to make an image and then install the image to a VDI in VBox.
Or search for one that you prefer on Google. (disk imaging software)
Or drop this in Google p2v site:forums.virtualbox.org to see how others do it on the forums here.

If it is a retail version of XP and you still have the CD, you could do a repair install of the OS.

If it is an OEM version, you will probably have activation problems even if you get it to boot.

Even if you can't get it to boot, you can attach the vhd file to another vm and access the data on it. That is how I access the data from an old Dell desktop with an OEM version of XP.

I had not thought about a repair reinstall. I do still have the original disk, so I'll give that a try. This involves more than just the data; I need to be able to run an older version of an applicaton that was on this old PC. I am trying to avoid having to rebuild a replic from scratch, and text out VB at teh same time.