system was buggy, so i wanted to reinstall win ME. backed everything up and reformatted, fdisked, partitioned etc. booted up with system restoration disk with OS on it and very very early on in the install process it froze up. i mean, it asked me if i'd like to install ME, show me a bunch of screens about the hardware, and then go blank. contacted gateway (out of warranty) and they said that since i was able to reformat and all that without any errors, my HD seems to be ok but that perhaps my OS disk is bad. they were unable to replace it. just in case, i bought a brand new hard drive which is now installed. also while on with them, they kept trying to get me to access bios, but we were unable to do it through all the F keys, delete, escape, etc. it would either freeze up (F1) or would say "invalid system disk. replace the disk and then press any key" i created a boot disk so was able to get to at least a dos prompt with cd rom support. accessed the system restoration kit disk and it seems fine. found the folder called win9X with all the cabs in it, etc. copied the entire cd onto the hard drive and tried installing ME from the HD. same results with same exact freezing point. was told that i could buy winxP upgrade and during the install, it would ask me to install the old OS disk. i did so, but it keeps telling me that it's not what it's looking for- so now my winxp upgrade purchase is so far for naught. what do i do now?

Hi, Start from begining. Debug, partition, then try to install ME.

i've done the whole process like 6 times. then i bought a new hard drive and still the same results. what do you mean by debug? can i do that from dos?

are u sure your formating and partitioning correctly and in correct order.