Right i had a PC with Windows ME, and got a new one with XP Vista recently, i cheekily tryed to install XP on my other one but failed miserably in getting it activated, so i decided ah well saves my karma taking a knock!

heres the problem, when i try to install ME again i cant - theres a ME floppy boot disk, a ME CD and and Driver CD, wheni put the floppy in and re-boot it says its a NTFS and that i need to erase the partition, but it just fails if i try - so it seems im stuck. any ideas?

Unfortunately ME is based on FAT32 so you will need to format it back into that. As you mention you still have the Windows XP cd use that. Boot up from that and start up the install. At a certain point you will be able to format the drives, not only in NTFS, but also in FAT32. After the drive has been formatted just quit that install en put the ME cd back in.

i set the bios to boot fromt the CD drive first but it still goes right into XP then wont let me log in untill i register, so how else can i format it or install ME?

Some mainboards have a special option when you start up your pc you are able to hit either F10 or F12 which will bring you into a boot menu. From their you are able to select your boot device. You have to check this though in your Mainboard book.

Else you have to check your bios again to make sure it first boots from your cdrom drive and then follow the guidelines I gave you in this post

Well ive done that but i cant see where you can choose FAT32, in the formatting options i get:

Format the partition using the NTFS file system (quick)
Format the partition using the NTFS file system


and thats it...

Ok, if that option didnt work I would suggest booting up on your Windows ME cd. This should give you a menu. Stating something like start setup, boot up in dos or boot up in dos with cd support if im not mistaken.
You boot up with cd support.
Then type: format c:
If that doesnt work you will first need to delete the partitions. The easiest way of doing this is probably through Windows XP setup. As the dos version is quite complicated. You then create new partitions with the Windows XP setup. After that you might be able to format them with the windows XP setup as well in FAT32. If not use either the option I just stated or your ME boot disk.

GL