Solved I used F2 to get into the BIOS and turned-off the internal card readers,  - then started the install again and deleted the partition I created last time and specified a new partition (using only part of the space) and noted that it said it would be C: (wish I'd taken note of that the first time!) - install then happened to C: drive - I then went into the BIOS again and turned-off the CD/DVD drive - then went into Computer Management / Disk management and created by 2nd drive and assigned it to D: - then back into the BIOS and turned the CD/DVD and card readers back on again - Now I have C: and D: as the hard disk drives, then E: as the DVD, then the card readers follow.
I had a 2nd hard disc crash and decided to go with a RAID 0 configuration for my new install.  At this stage I only have 1 disk while I wait for a warranty return. I turned RAID ON in the BIOS, loaded my RAID drivers by hitting F6 during the XP installation. All went very smoothly until I went to start copying stuff back onto my C: drive from my backup - and discovered that my hard disk is drive I: !  (C: D: E: F: & G: are the card reader drives, H: is the DVD drive). It was a brand spanking new 640GB SATA drive, I told XP to load into the unpartitoned space (ie I didn't fiddle about at all - just accepted all the defaults). I'm really unhappy continuing to load-up my system because I suspect I'll never be able to change it to C:, and sooner-or-later, some software is going to not be able to cope with the boot volume not being C:. I'm willing to re-install again at this stage, but what should I do differently to get the boot volume to be C: ? thanks in anticipation Ian
XP installation on E520 RAID 0 ends-up on I: drive (not C: drive)