I contacted them earlier hazel about delivery times as I'm off down south again at the weekend, and I had a very polite reply a very quick 10 minutes later.
They do seem to be a polished outfit.
@ Richard:
Cheers Richard, another good source to bookmark. I haven't heard of them and my search didn't pop their name up either.
I hope you find an hdd you like. Over the past three months I've replaced two IDE DVD burner drives which made choosing very easy since they were in limited supply and variation.
If the information from Speccy is correct then yes your motherboard does support SATA.
For XP to boot from SATA it needs the raid drives provided by your motherboard manufacturer which normally happens during the XP setup process.
It maybe possible to incorporate the drivers with your IDE drive, backup to an image and then restore to SATA however I've never attempted such a thing.
Unless you have the original XP install CD + raid drivers you might as well play it safe and buy a replacement IDE drive for a few extra quid.
After reading the stuff in that link, I'm inclined to agree with you Richard.
Just as a point of interest, there are a couple of "capped" connections inside my desktop case I didn't know the purpose of, but after googling "SATA Connection" images, I do believe they are SATA connections ...
What a shame I can't just plug in a SATA drive without having to jump through hoops to get it going.
I think it too risky to buy one without knowing for sure there wouldn't be any problems.
If the information from Speccy is correct then yes your motherboard does support SATA.
For XP to boot from SATA it needs the raid drives provided by your motherboard manufacturer which normally happens during the XP setup process.
It maybe possible to incorporate the drivers with your IDE drive, backup to an image and then restore to SATA however I've never attempted such a thing.
Unless you have the original XP install CD + raid drivers you might as well play it safe and buy a replacement IDE drive for a few extra quid.
Thanks for your insights Alan. It's getting interesting is this.
I've no doubt both of you guys are right in what you say, and I've got almost a month come this weekend before I get back home which is when I'll be ordering a new drive.
So that's plenty of time to take my time, and learn what I can about this. Putting a SATA drive into a 6 year old desktop running IDE by default, can't be 100% straightforward, but as the computer has SATA capability, and what appear to be SATA drive connections, it shouldn't be too difficult.
But we're talking Microsoft here, and HP. Maybe the level of difficulty making the change from IDE to SATA may depend on the make of your computer.
I'm just throwing things up in the air here, as this isn't an issue I've encountered myself before, and I can't actually recollect it ever been brought up in a thread in the years I've been here.
So, the more input we can get, meaning anyone following this thread who has encountered this IDE/SATA issue before, should throw in their two penneth. There must be a lot of computers out there with SATA capability, but running IDE by default, and their owners have no idea of that fact.
Driver supported MS Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/NT4.0/Server 2003/XP-64bit/Vista/Win7
They have a user forum and also Tech Support with Live Chat and email options ?
Alan
Tasgandy uses an adapter with no problems (post #5), but I've read there could be a performance trade off with that.
But that could depend upon the make of your computer etc etc., and Tasgandy will I'm sure have a perfectly acceptable set up which he's happy with.
I'll do some proper research over the next few weeks, but I've a feeling I'll eventually stick with an IDE replacement.
It's too much of a grey area to spend money on a SATA drive, so the only way I could check this is by borrowing a SATA drive from someone, which is unlikely. Or maybe buying a cheapo 2nd hand one from one of the small computer shops round my way, and use it for testing.
Just think, I was a happy before I saw those "SATA adapter enabled" settings in the BIOS.
Tasgandy uses an adapter with no problems (post #5), but I've read there could be a performance trade off with that.
But that could depend upon the make of your computer etc etc., and Tasgandy will I'm sure have a perfectly acceptable set up which he's happy with.
You are correct @DennisD - the 6 year old box I use for storing & downloading movies (is also my Ubuntu PC) has 2 x IDE and 1 x "SATA I" & 1 x "SATA II" drives mounted with one of the SATA drives as Primary Master & the other as Secondary Master, with the IDE's being Primary & secondary Slaves, all operating with no issues.
However as you say DennisD unless you can borrow a SATA drive for testing (if you were here in Tasmania - Aus, I would lend you one) best to play with the devil you know than the devil you don't know as the devil's always in the detail.............good luck.
before I saw those "SATA adapter enabled" settings in the BIOS. 
