Hi Gape, When my HD got broke, I bought myself a new big one (200G) and decided to implement the win98 SE SP. Install win98se from my original CD cd first and the SP afterwards. I followed your implementation plan and got in trouble very soon. Long before the steps 7 and 8 on your list (installation order) every time the new HD was full of corrupted files in all 3 partitions. I didn't get a well working 'basic' installation. During file copying every time I ruined lots of files and I can't tell you how many times I have seen MS Scandisk processing. My search on internet to the cause of this took very much time. Searching Maxtor's KB, I found 2 items to check in relation to 'big' HD's: 1) ver. of Fdisk (MS KB263044) and 2) ver. of Esdi_506.PDR (MS KB243450). These were ok, probably because of the 'slipstreaming' trick? I digged some more in Maxtor's KB and found a hint that the ASPI layer should not be older than ver. 4.60 (1021). There could be conflicts between the Aspi driver(s) and the IDE driver(s). This link brings you to the KB article at the Maxtor site: KB article Maxtor After installing a new Aspi Layer (from Adaptic's site) my trouble finally ended after 10 days and now I can get on with the next step(s) of the implementation. I propose to implement a fresh ASPI Layer in your Win98 SE SP or (at least) indicate to fresh up the ASPI Layer yourself. The one on the win98se CD is way too old. I hope this contribution, in some way, may benefit you all. Bye, have a nice day. Rudolf. added info To test the stability, after the install of the fresh Aspi files, I copied "tons" of files back and forth, directly between HD drives & partitions and/or via the local network. No more corrupted files, nor corrupted directories. This extensive test gives me confidence for the rest of the win98 SE SP action.