Help: Newbie to Serial ATA and P4 M/B installations

I had my P4 and first serial ATA drive and P4 system set up by the
guys at the shop. But now that I've got enough money, I want to add my
secondary serial ATA drive.

I know how to set up the old systems-Ultra ATA drives etc. But with
these new setups, I'm kind of uncertain of the order and procedures
that you have to take.

I'm using a Gigabyte 865PE m/b with both IDE ports taken up for my
CD-ROMs. With the first serial ATA in, what order of steps between:

1)The physical installation & wire connection
2)Power-up
3)Possible BIOS enabling
4)Possible WinXP driver/detect new device
5)Drive formatting
6)anything else I missed out

must I take to install my second serial ATA drive? Can I use WinXP's
generic driver or do I have to use a specialized driver (it's a
DiamondMax Plus 9 120GB SATA 150).

Please help 'cos I don't want to burn out my new drive and the rest of
my system. I know these new P4 and new technologies need different
attention than the older ones.

Thanks a great deal!

 

If you know for a fact your cd-roms are on IDE 1,2 and your SATA HD is
on SATA 1,you should be able to just plug your new SATA HD into SATA
2.

If your cd-roms are configured as a master/slave on IDE 1 or 2 and
your SATA HD is set (routeted) to one of your IDE Channels "IN YOUR
BIOS" you will have to reconfigure everything.

What model is your motherboard?