You are on the right track with the hit F6 to install special drivers...

It should have promted you to insert a floppy with the drivers...

I have only installed XP on one system with SATA so far and I think I copied the driver from the motheboard cd to a floppy. I probably did not need to do that...

In most cases you do need to copy the files to floppy. You also need to omit certain .pdf document files when you copy the drivers to floppy, as they are too large to fit.

UPDATE:

Man I feel so stupid. I finally got it worked out and able to get a fresh install of windows. Believe it or not the problem was my keyboard (really it was my stupidity) but I blame it on the KB. I bought a new KB at the same time I bought the M B and HD. It has assignable keys all along the top of the F Keys. On the far right there is an F Lock key. When locked it allows you to use the F keys and when unlocked allows you to use the F keys as assignable keys. Well, in all my years experience with computers I have never had a KB with an F Lock key. Never even knew it was there until yesterday.

Even then, it was more of a fluke that I found it. I was in the registry trying to get rid of some residual files. I did a search for the files and when I pressed F3 to "Find Next" it wouldn't work. That made me take a look at the KB thinking that it was defective. As I scanned across the key...Low and behold this F Lock...As soon as I see it I knew immediately what the problem was.

So, I immediately plugged in my xp cd and this time when I pushed F8 it went to the setup recognized my sata drive, I reformated it and installed winxp no problem...Man I wasted two full days and wasted my sole trying to figure this one out.

Thanks to everyone for your help. Much appreciated. Case closed. :-)

snipe