How do I know if my mother board supports the new SATA stanadard for hardrives mother board- ECS K7S5A

You could look in the manual, look in bios, Look at the board for the elongated slots for the cable connector. Go on line to the manufacturers site and check.

and another thing if I do buy an ATA hard drive now will it work in boards that support S ATA later on??

this may interest you http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT011701000000

The ECS K7S5A does not support SATA, however, you can add a Serial ATA Controller card into one of its 5 PCI slots and gain the (dubious) benefits of SATA. Refer to these sites that explain them. Promise Serial ATA Controllers (2 or 4 Port) http://www.promise.com/product/product_detail_eng.asp?productId=98&familyId=3 Adaptec 2-port native Serial ATA RAID controller http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/techspecs.jsp?sess=no&language=English+US&prodkey=AAR-1210SA&cat=%2fProduct%2fAAR-1210SA#suppOS Siig Serial ATA 4-Channel PCI controller http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=7&pid=465 If you do buy an ATA hard drive now will it work in boards that support SATA later because there are adapters that will convert ATA to SATA. See examples .. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=41994&item=3489946985&rd=1 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=41994&item=3489927885&rd=1 Good luck, Sandor