Incorrect MS-DOS version

I'm trying to format a hard drive on a friend's laptop and I keep getting the incorrect msdos version message.

To give you some background:

The laptop had Win2000 on it, but he wants to re-install Windows ME on it (mainly because he has the Win ME CD). So I did the following:

>Deleted the NTFS partition using delpart.exe

>Used AEFDISK and established a FAT32 primary aprtition.

Now I want to format the hard drive, but I keep getting the "version" error message. I could sure use some help. I've looked through several things in the Microsoft Knowledge bas, but nothing was helpful.

Thanks!

You should be booting off a startup disk. Are you?

You may have to use a boot disk with fdisk and CD support on it before the drive can be seen by the ME install files.

gl mac

IIRC, If you wipe all the existing partitions, Windows ME setup will take care of creating new ones and formatting them. If you plan on having a complicated partition structure you might want to do it yourself, but otherwise you can let ME setup handle it.

It looks like the version of FORMAT.COM you are trying to use doesn't match the version of DOS you are booting into. Yes it makes a difference.

Good feedback! Thanks to all!