WinME laotop solution

[BILL S]

I recently got a couple Dell LS Latitudes to learn about and of course, use. I'm a bit of a tinkerer, and I'm finding with Dell's direct approach, these are somewhat easy to assemble and even enhance... While in that regard I'm referring to the graphics card options, my first Dell LS is the LS model that is about 6 years old, the PP01S, or L400 (a variation IIRC) that has no built in drives, one USB 1.1 (1.0?) and HDD slot. It also allows only one PC Card slot in it's thin chassis and is a Pentium 3 option at 400, 500 and 700MHz. I got the 500MHz version, and my first modern HDD for it was a $90 Fujitsu that is 100GB and 4200RPM.
To format this one from the getgo without any accessories, I opted to use my Windows ME Restore disk for my first PC, a 700MHz Celeron eTower eMachine desktop. The restore for ME uses Norton Ghost in a two disk read and write method then ejects the disks.
At the point the image restored to the blank disk ( and why I love this effortless method) I moved the 2.5 drive to the Dell and did my initial boot. They both have Intel's North and South gates from the same year, basically so the Dell loaded all needed drivers from the Cab directory of Options in Windows!
Anyway, with the original size of 30GB on the desktop easily eclipsed, should I consider doing an XP/Win2000 double partition/boot on this 100GB spaced drive?

I have not done this before but it is of interest as I think it's possible. I could use the newer OS for more hardware use. I have read that due to Win9x's FAT system, the NTFS side of the XP/2K can't be used, I don't think that would be a big drawback or would it defeat the purpose in the long run??
Thanks
BILL

[Chaky]

Not necessarily. There is NTFS reader for Windows 95, 98, Me (here). It's a freeware. I haven't tried it, but it should work fine. I suggest that you do extensive tests with it (defragmenting, saving encrypted/compressed rar archives and so) before you use it on a every-day basis.

One more thing. XP/2k are difficult to get rid of, so, I say you give it a proper thought before installing.
Good thing would be using this tool. It is free MS-DOS-based tool that will record your MBR (Master Boot Record). That MBR gets changed when you install NT/2k/XP on your system, making your bootable partition look for ntldr.com, boot.ini, ntdetect.com and other NT/2k/XP related boot files.
So, make bootable floppy, copy MBRTool there together with a pre-XP copy of your MBR and io.sys, msdos.sys and all ME boot files. That way you can get rid of XP painlessly. (together with partition it was on). There won't be any need to format-install the ME.