So, what are my options... bendover and take it from microsoft, or is there I way I can load the XP from our new computer onto the old one and retain all of the old data?

well, i dont know how savy you are with hardware, but you could always hook up your ME harddive as a slave to the XP and copy stuff over like that. make sure you set the jumper of the ME drive to slave and hook it up on the slave part of the ribbon on the XP machine

wont work WinXP isnt like 9x in the sense you can swap its hdd from one machine to another it'll give you a blue screen telling you of an error, its part of microsofts lovely antipiricy things been around sense Win2k I still wanna say either something was messed with on the WinME computer virus or settings

It shouldnt if he does it right. Have two hardrives in at the same time, but just make sure the XP is the master drive. Either have the jumper on the ME drive slave or just leave it off. Whatever you do just dont try to boot to the ME while it is attached to the same ribbon as the XP, then you will probably have problems like kazuki said. I mean mine'* of well try it since he cant get anywhere with the ME drive anyways!

my mistake I misunderstud what you were getting at there but yes if the other hdd is set to slave WinXP should be able to read it an you can pull off what ever was of importance on it that you dont want to lose if you need to reinstall windows did you mess with any of its hardware or anything before this happed it might be over heating an turning off or does it give an error box before this happens?

No, there is no error box that comes up, I just adjusted the windows setting for the network, and it said that I must retart for the changes to take place, after the restart it has not worked...

But even if I change drives, does it mean that I will never be able to use that computer again?

No way. You can still use that computer again anytime. Once you transfer files from the ME harddrive to the XP drive, take the ME drive out, put it back in the old computer, then boot directly to the XP cd and fromat the harddrive, then install XP on the old ME machine....do ya follow kazuki and I at all? it is kinda hard to explain sometimes.

I understand how to do most of this... as far as salves and whatnot goes... I dont know how to format a HD though nor do I know how to boot from a disk. Also, our XP disk says for re-install only, does this matter? Thanks guys!

Nope, it is just a Microsoft goofy thing. As long as you paid for the CD somehow, you can do anything with it. (except make copies and illegal crap like that)

Did you say you know how to hook up two harddrives or not?

Booting to a cd is easy, just pop the cd in the tray while the computer is on. then restart the computer and an option should come up that says boot to cd press any key. press a key and you will have options to format and install windows xp. but remember to do that after you back up your info! if you need help on hooking up two hard drives let me know and i will do a write up for you real fast.