cheers guys, sorry for the lack of response, I've got tonsillitis and feel bloody awful.

Coz, alas, my bios doesn't support usb as a bootable option but you are correct, I am trying to install a fresh copy of xp on the new blank drive.

Adrian, not quite sure what your on about? the drive is recognised in the bios as the 320gb drive its supposed to be (not the 250gb I keep thinking I ORIGINALLY BOUGHT)

I've been reading up on the net and it seems the easiest option is to download nlite and add the sata drivers to disk. Never heard of the program until yesterday so fingers crossed as I haven't got the foggiest as to what to do!!!!

Doesn't it seem a little strange though that after attempting to get the floppy drive by replacing it with 3 different drives,2 different leads ad using several different leads that it still wont read the bloody disk ????