XP is your best bet really Mark. Haven't run ME on any of my PC's, I stuck with W2000 Pro until I was satisfied that XP Pro was a good upgrade, lol.

I still think the issue most likely lies with your 'work' hdd being NTFS, so W98SE wouldn't fix that issue as Jim says. If it was the size problem, I'd expect your PC to see the drive and be able to access it, but report its size as lower than it is.

Out of interest, do you know what bios your PC runs on - should tell you briefly when the PC first starts.... (I don't think you have a bios issue, as you say the bios can see the second drive, just wondering)