I recently had some viruses and other pretty bad things on my computer. I used ad-aware and mcafee and each of those found about 1000 infected files that I cleaned. After about 10 virus scans, I was finally able to get rid of everything.

After this, my DVD burner would not work properly and many programs would not start (DVD Shrink, Nero) at all. I was not able to play any audio CDs, DVDs would not play automatically, and other CDs would not autorun when I put them in.

I decided that it was time to reinstall WinME. I went to control panel, add/remove and created a bootdisk from there. I got a few errors saying it could not write some files to the disk but wheni clicked retry it seemed to work. Just to be safe, I also created a bootdisk from bootdisk.com

I could not start up in dos mode to delete the partition and create a new partition and I couldnt format the HDD. So I took the HDD and put it in the other computer running on WinXP, set it as the slave drive, then formatted the HDD from there.

When I put the newly formatted HDD back in to try reinstalling WinME, I got the message saying to remove all media and press any key. I put in the floppy bootdisk and it started to work but then said that I had errors with system.ini on lines 23-31 and lines 44-47. From there, I just changed to the CD drive and tried running setup.exe on the reinstall CD that came with the computer from there. This started to install WinME but then I got a message saying that it can't install because there are either errors with the HDD or something else where Dell is preventing it from installing WinMe on the drive and that I should contact Dell about it.

I tried to see if it would let me install WinMe on another HDD (a western digital drive I bought a few years ago), but I got the same messages saying there might be errors with the HDD or contact the manufacturer.

Ususually DELL are not full CD's but a Recovery CD and by formatting the drive on another PC you have removed the hidden partition, if this is the case then phone DELL as without the hidden partition the CD will not install an O/S

Though I could be completely wrong, maybe a picture of the CD would suffice ?

So you are saying to call DELL so that they can tell me what to do about the hidden partition and how to get WinMe back on the drive?

If you only have the Recovery CD then yes........................

I have all of the discs that came along with the computer. Theres the WinME Reinstallation Disc, and then 2 or 3 more with drivers and such. All I am missing is a floppy bootdisk that will work properly. Seeing how I made about 4 or 5 of them on separate computers with bootdisk.com and none of them work, I'm guessing the problem may just be with the floppy disk drive.

Explain exactly what happens when you boot off the boot floppy.

There is no system.ini file on the WinME bootdisk (I have one right here)...are you sure you formatted the HDD correctly? You should do it on the machine you're gonna run the HDD in, either by booting of the ME bootdisk & then typing FORMAT C: at the A:\ prompt, or by booting of the bootdisk that came with the HDD (such as Western Digital's "Data LifeGuard") & following the instructions.

Once properly formatted, boot off the WinME boot floppy, then at the A:\ prompt, change to the letter designated for the optical drive (usually D or E...R if it's from bootdisk.com), then type SETUP & hit ENTER.

When I tried to boot off the floppy, I would see a line saying something about Starting Windows ME Emergency Boot... or something like that. Then whether I selected start with CD-ROM, without CD-ROM, or Minimal Boot, it will start to work but then I would get a message saying "File is either missing or corrupt ****.*** Error with system.ini on line 23" I would get this error for lines 23-31 and 44-47 with ****.*** being the names of different files.

I tried to fdisk and format the drive on my computer where I run the HDD but it would either say invalid command or start to work but then tell me I can't continue for whatever reason.

Thats when I put the drive in another computer as a slave drive. Then I right clicked the drive, selected format. It had options and I set it to FAT32 clicked OK and then it formatted the drive.

I tried to use the floppy disk that came with my Western Digital HDD but when I put it in, it said that it was missing the AutoExec.bat file I believe it was and I couldnt do anything.

Is there a way for me to partition the drive if its a slave drive in the computer running WinXP? Or maybe install WinME on the slave drive somehow?

With a Dell you have an option for a recovery CD or a real Windows CD for a mere $10 more. Why people don't invest $10 more in a $500+ purchase to prevent all of this is beyond me.

If you have a recovery CD, then yes, call Dell.

Hi there

I am having the same problem as this. I had a Win Me PC which I couldn't format, So I took the HDD and put it in the other computer running on WinXP, set it as the slave drive, then formatted the HDD from there.

When I put the HDD back into my machine and tried to install Win98 from a CD, I get the "NTLDR is missing, Press any key to restart" message. I went into BIOS and checked that everything looks alright. I am not sure what is going on. It seems like that the machine is not even reading the CD-ROM because CD-ROM light never turns on.

Please help!!