Just installed my 7K200 7200 RPM 200GB Hitachi HD is FAST!!!

[Altadena_Mark]

Thanks EOMtp. It did sound a bit strange. One more question, would one need to worry about these drivers and BIOS settings if I 'cloned' the old hard drive to this new drive with a program like Acronis True Image or Casper, etc.?
Mark

[EOMtp]

...would one need to worry about these drivers and BIOS settings if I 'cloned' the old hard drive...

In order for the cloned SATA drive to boot -- assuming that the Master Boot Record (MBR) is "correct" (that's a different discussion and easy to fix if it is not "correct") -- one has to set the BIOS SATA setting to "Compatibility Mode" for at least one Windows XP startup. Once XP has started, one can provide XP the SATA drivers and thereafter the BIOS setting will not matter in the context of this discussion.

However, there is little reason, if any, not to run always with the BIOS SATA setting in "Compatibility Mode". I yet have to see any demonstrable advantage in doing otherwise given the current crop of notebook SATA drives, notwithstanding the "on paper" benefits that are supposed to accompany SATA native mode. Therefore, if one leaves the BIOS SATA setting on "Compatibility Mode", then one does not have to think about SATA drivers at all.