Please could someone tell me how to reformat a sata drive, I've done the normal thing and booted from the CD and thats fine but then it will ask which drive do you want to format/partition it will only give me the opition of the old hdd drive that is in my system as a spare drive with nothing on it. The sata drive doesn't come up at all. please can someone help.

Is this a newly installed SATA HDD? Is this drive detected by your Computer's BIOS Setup? Are you using the Software disc provided by the SATA HDD manufacturer? In other words: 1.Recheck your installation steps to make sure you did not miss anything 2. Make sure BIOS Setup is configured to 'Auto detect' the drive installed according to the manufacturer's instruction. If you need help post the make & model of your computer if it is brand named PC or the Make and Model of the motherboard if it is an self-assembled PC and similar data about the SATA hdd. M

I assume you have 'text mode' drivers for the drive during setup? There is the option to hit F6 during setup and use additional mass storage drivers. (These are normally on the cd supplied with your mobo) The Win XP CD will not be able to see the SATA drive without these drivers. Likewise, once Windows has been installed, you will probably need the mobo driver cd to use the enhanced functions of SATA