Thanks for responding guys. Here is an update. My XP CD is not bootable or
just won't boot -- it's pretty old (got XP years ago, thought I'd wait for a
better computer and that didn't happen until now). So, I tried the six set
up disks. That failed on disk 3 (couldn't load setupdd.sys code 7). I tried
WD's Lifeguard program again (to no avail), but I did find something at their
site that said their software would follow a procedure (after formatting) to
put my Win ME start up disk contents onto the hard drive (which it didn't do
of course). So, why does it want to do that and is that something I should
try? If yes, how? Also, tried to leave part of the drive untouched and just
go with a primary partition, and ME startup just wouldn't go for that. Also,
why is the total space read by FDISK so far off while the logical drives are
all correct when I try the old fashioned way? Oh, I also tried to go into
the XP i386 folder to run winnt and start set up that way but I was told it
was an invalid directory. For that matter so was docs, all were but
valueadded which it opened up fine. Still in need of major help here.

"Jon_Hildrum" wrote:

You do not need to install ME prior to installing XP.

The XP CDROM is bootable and it also has all the necessary utilities to
partition and format a drive.

In order to deal with a 250GB harddrive you will need winXP with SP1 or
later. If your winXP upgrade disk has SP1 included then just go ahead. If
not then prepare a partition of 120G or less (partition and format during
install). Leave the remaining space unused at present. Install XP - Install
the latest Service pack (SP2) and then use disk manager in XP to partition
and format the reminder of the drive.

Here is an MS article
http://support.microsoft.com/default...22120121120120

--
Jon Hildrum
DTS MVP

www.hildrum.com
"Gary" wrote in message
...
I purchased a new 250 GB WD hard drive to put in a "new" computer, so I
have
no OS installed. I have a Gigabyte MB (7s748) that I believe has ATA 100
onboard and the cpu is an Athlon XP 2600+. The BIOS reads the drive as
LBA
250 GB, ATA 100. I am unable to install Win ME (off CD) from DOS using a
Win
ME boot disk after getting the hard drive partitioned and formatted.
First I
tried using WD's Lifeguard utilities. I set an 8 GB primary and the rest
of
the partitions at 30 GB (all FAT 32). When I tried to install Win ME, it
went through the getting ready bar (got to 100%) and then gave me the
Message
SU 0013 error and failed. I tried other combinations but got the same
result
every time. A Microsoft's ME read me said it could be the result of using
third party software, so I wiped everything and tried FDISK and FORMAT. I
again tried several combinations. Same result, only these times no
message
came up, setup just stopped (at the same place). In all cases FDISK has
apparently seen all the partitions, primary (says it is active), secondary
and logical drives (although it says the primary is, for example, 8 GB it
then says the total is 24 GB; while it also tells me the logical are 30 GB
each) and scan disk says everything is OK just before going into set up.
What is going on? I have the upgrade to XP, but that won't work in DOS,
so
I have to get ME up and running. Please help me out with some suggestions
(discovered solutions would be even better), I am at my wit's end.