I had the exact same issue and was up to 95 updates.

To solve it:
I disabled the automatic updates
Downloaded and installed the whole windows XP SP3 update (not the automatic
stuff)
Rebooted many times
Then when there was no more updates pending I reactivated the automatic
updates.

Wish you best luck it was a nightmare for me

"tca82602" wrote:

> My computer crashed recently and someone wiped my hard drive and reinstalled
> windows xp for me. Ever since I have been unable to install any updates at
> all. I have a list of 18 just hanging out. Can someone please help?