Installation issues - Connection to the specified server has failed

Hi

i am trying to install sap server on windows 2008.my SQL server is on another box with windows 2003 and SQL 2008

select server type drop down is blank and after entering SQL server name/user/password i am agettig this error

"Connection to the specified server has failed"

to make sure i have access to sql server ,i hav installed SQL 2008 native client and created one test odbc DSN to test that my serevr is talking to database server

databse and both 2003 and 2008 machines are 64 bit

Please help