Thanks for the replies.

I know it's not missing because I plugged the drive back into te other PC and could see it.

This is my Daughter's laptop and she will not be back with it for the next 10 days so I am trying to get some ideas for when she returns.

I will try your file legomind as one of the options.

However I want to clarify a part of the instructions in the Tutorial. It is the part regarding where to position the drive on the IDE cable - quote:

attatch the drive to IDE 1, channel 2 and start up your computer.
- format the drive to FAT32 (you can always switch it to ntfs later, with a prog such as partition magic)
- shutdown the computer

*With the DOS cd in the drive

- switch the laptop drive to IDE 1 channel 1 for best chance of detection, DOS is not the smartest OS ever made

My PC is configured with a SATA drive and the CD drive on IDE2. I plugged the laptop drive into IDE 2 channel 2 (mid point on the cable?) and formatted it there.

I have now done this a number of times and have tried copying the I386 folder across in Windows and Dos with the same result. I started to read more not completely related threads on here and by piecing things together, I started to think the poition of the drive was more critical than I first thought. So I have now tried it without the SATA drive connected and with the Laptop drive on IDE 2 channel 1 but the same result.

Is this important? Should I do it again with the drive on IDE 1? I thought the position was only important in ensuring it was recognised correctly by the PC and had no impact once moved to the laptop. Is that incorrect?

Thanks.