NTLDR is missing, yet I don't even use Windows?

I am putting together a new computer, and when I tried to start it up this morning, it said "NTLDR is Missing, Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE to restart computer." Problem is, I don't even use a windows based OS yet, in fact, I was trying to boot off of a Windows ME boot disk. A WinME boot disk doesn't use NTLDR. But the floppy light doesn't even light up, and I got it set up to boot from floppy first. The harddrive has no OS on it, and it is currently formatted NTFS (although that will change to Ext3 once I get Linux installed).

Oh, and if you need some info:
Soyo SY-6BA+IV Mobo
64MB PC100 SDRAM
Intel PII @ 400 MHz
GeForce 4 MX 440 w/ 64MB DDR VRAM
Creative Labs 32-bit Sound Blaster Card
56k V.92 Modem
Seagate 5200 RPM 10 GB Internal HDD
1.44 MB 3.5" Floppy drive
24x CD-ROM
1.2 MB 5.25" Floppy Drive

I'm about to drop a 128MB stick of RAM in there, and a 32x8x42 CD-RW drive. The chip I got for free, so that is why it is just a PII (the motherboard supports up to a 850MHz Pentium III, which I'm going to upgrade it to. This dude is going to sell me one for $22)

The NTLDR message has nothing to do with Windows. I have only experienced it with corrupt partitions (or Bad Sectors), and when a HD from a removable bay wasn't inserted fully. Last time it happened to my HD (as a result of bad sectors) I ran CHKDSK from a CD and it fixed the inconsistency. Any kind of disk-checking / recovery utility should solve your problem, otherwise you got to clear your partition tables and star over again.

I'm trying to boot from floppy though. The computer doesn't even check the floppy. I tested the floppy in another machine and it worked. If I can boot from floppy I can run a format on the HDD.

Check your BIOS boot routines. Also, make sure that Rapid-POST (or similar) is turned off.

I got it set up like this:
A, CDROM, C

And fast POST is disabled.

Then it should be booting. Try www.bootdisk.com for some other boot disk images. If none of those work then consult your MotherBoard book.

(and to mention the obvious: Make sure your floppy drive has power & that the Floppy drive is actually registered in your BIOS.)

You could also set it to boot from CD if you have a CD burner handy that you can use to make a boot CD (or you could just use the Windows ME disk)

blakrat> Windows ME can't boot from CD, you must put a floppy in first

Xei> the floppy is probably getting power, because when I go into the BIOS setup, it says the floppy drive is there and it is set up correctly.

If you have a burner, goto www.bootdisk.com and download something called: EBCD. It will allow you to boot to DOS 7.1 then you can load WinME install.