Yes, there are a number of possible ways.

If you can use a CDROM drive, as appears to be the case, then you can do it
all from a bootable cd. I'd offer to mail you one (or upload the .iso) only
with a laptop it is probably best that you use the installation files that
came with it.

Or you can do it from a bootable usb stick if the laptop bios supports
booting from one (if so I could supply all the necessary files for making
that).

Or you can do it by plugging it back into XP - either using a 3rd party tool
(such as Partition Magic or Boot It NG) - or Windows itself (but XP won't
format a disk larger than 32GB as FAT32, though just about every other
partitioning tool will! Anyway that is not really a problem if the drive is
larger than 32GB, since a partition at the front of the disk can be made
that is smaller than 32GB and that can then be formatted as FAT32. If you
wanted the entire drive to be the C: drive, it could be expanded later,
using a 3rd party tool, but you can comfortably install Win Me to a drive of
3 GB or less).

I suggest the easiest solution will be for you to plug it back into the XP
laptop and follow instructions. They would be, to start with, with the Win
Me disk plugged in, in Start | Run, type "DISKMGMT.MSC". Expand the
resultant Disk Management window to full screen and identify your Win Me
laptop's disk - or if you're unsure, describe here what you're seeing. Then
one of us can give you precise step-by-step instructions (it is very quick!
Surprisingly quick).

Shane





"Ralph" wrote in message
...

Hi Shane,,, seems you are right on the money...formatted on a XP-Pro
laptop..the part that loss me is that I don't know anything about a fat32
partition. I simply plugged the HD into a usb external connector and
formatted the drive. nothing showed on the drive after formatting. IS
there a
special way I can reformat the HD on my laptop so it will work when I try
to
build a ME desktop?
"Pogle" wrote:

David H. Lipman wrote:
From: "Ralph"

my computer got all garbaged up so for a fresh start ,I removed my
hd and formated it on another computer. now when I reboot with the
WIN ME disk I get the NTLDR is missing message.
I note that my cd rom is listed as secondary slave. Could that be an
issue? it worked in that config before I reformatted.[ the master cd
rom died a while back and i disconnected it [ leaving the second cd
rom in place] after removing the hd for reformat SOOOOO
how do I get my comp running on Win ME again?

Thanking you in advance


Ralph

Windows ME is a Win9x based OS and there is NO NTLDR which is a part
of the NT Based OS.

I presume you are confusing Windows 2000 with Windows ME and your
problem is with Windows 2000 (aka; Win2K).

Seems the opposite way the two systems tend to be confused, David. For a
minute there I was thionking this is the old 'trying to install SP4 on
Win
Me' issue, only I don't see that it'd get that far. Perhaps Ralph does
mean
Win Me, but the disk was incorrectly formatted, something like it was
formatted in an NTFS system without hiding the new FAT32 partition, i.e.
as
a dual boot starting from XP's boot.ini? If it was made bootable in the
process I imagine that would occur.


Shane