hi all ..could really use some help
im thinking of installing a single sata harddrive to replace my run of the mill hard drive but i really dont know where to start or is it a worthwhile upgrade all i do know is that i have two ports on my motherboard saying sata1 and sata2 so i take it that its compatable :-| :-| :-|

You should not have any problems.
Make sure you have a SATA driver disk (floppy) available.
Check the CD that came with your motherboard...

What OS are you using?

Do you plan a fresh install or are you going to try and clone your old hard drive to the new hard drive.?

Aslong as your motherboard is compatible; which it sounds like it is, you will have no problems.

I would suggest a fresh windows install on this drive as you may come into complications otherwise.

Steve

ive found the drivers on the motherboard cd ..do i have to copy them onto floppy and install them b4 i reinstall windows xp ...thx for ure help guys

Copy them to a floppy. When prompted to 'Press F6 to load drivers' during the installation of XP, pop in the floppy.

can anyone recomend any make or model of a sata hardrive to me .i only use my pc for gaming and browsing :o ohhh and does a sata improve ure systems speed??

No, a SATA does not increase your system's speed to any degree at all. For browsing tasks you would not notice the difference, for games at best you will get a marginal reduction in load times.

Current generation SATA drives are bugger all better than modern IDE drives.

im ill with all this shit

A current generation SATA drive has a maximum theoretical data transfer speed of 150mbps. A current IDE hard drive has a maximum theoretical data transfer speed of 133mbps. Bugger all difference. At present, the major benefit of having a SATA drive is the improved internal airflow as a result of the tiny wee skinny cable it uses! But properly attended to, even a flat IDE cable can be tucked out of the way so that it doesn't interfere with airflow.

Many motherboards with SATA capability also offer RAID configurations if you install two identical drives. THAT gives a performance boost!

Other than that, drive rotation speed has more impact in performance than the drive type. A 10,000rpm drive will be faster in operation than a 7,200rpm drive. Remember though, the performance improvement only relates to data transfer, not to actual system speed.

There arent many makes of Drives. Go for Maxtor or Western Digital.
If you go with Maxtor, buy a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 or Maxtor DiamondMax 10.
They are also the same price. I bought SATA drive because I have 6 or 8 sata ports.