i downloaded a few different images from both the empeg site and mark lords. in the end i just stuck with his version 4 as it seemed as if it was the defacto one to use at this point from everything i had read. i'll go give the last 'official' release a shot. think that was 2.01 consumer i grabbed. i'll capture the log after it reboots and toss that up in a spoiler so it doesn't clutter the thread.

-edit-

well that actually cleared things up for me. from what i had read i thought that the version i was using would work for me. going back to consumer 2.01 seems to have worked. it loaded on the good 18gig drive flawlessly. i have opened the machine up via serial on the xp box with no problem. going to spend the rest of the evening putting 2.01 on the 60gig and getting it to connect to the laptop via ethernet.

still unsure why USB no workie on xp for the mk1's, but as i said if i have to suffer with serial for the time being, so be it.

thanks again for reading my troubles and offing good advice!