Clueless beginner questions

New to svn and tsvn. I've read the relevant parts of the tortoise manual. Can someone tell me where I'm misunderstanding the basic process?

WindowsXP and xampp apache
Installed subversion at e:\subversion
Created an e:\svn dir  
Set SVNParentPath E:\SVN
Installed tortoisesvn

So now I want to create a test 'project' and see what svn can do.

Create e:\testproject
Create e:\svn\testproject
Use tortoise svn make e:\svn\testproject into a repository
Add some simple text files to e:\testproject
Use tortoisesvn import command by right clicking e:\svn\testproject, select import, point to file:///E:/testproject

Errors:
Error: Unable to open an ra_local session to URL  
Error: Unable to open repository 'file:///E:/testproject'

What am I doing wrong?