after cleaning my sata harddisk with killdisk, the system cannot find the hardisk. what have i done wrong?

Are you saying that the BIOS does not detect it?

Or installing an Operating System does not detect it?

If the latter you need to load the motherboard SATA/Raid drivers when loading an Operating System.

If the former... that is strange. This same drive was working in this computer OK? One main reason that a BIOS can't detect a SATA drive is some motherboards only support SATA1 and not SATA2. In this case SATA2 drives have a jumper to revert them to SATA1 (or limit the transfer rate to 1.5 GB rather than 3 GB).

the OS does not detect it.
how do I load these?

During the operating system installation (particularly thinking of Windows 2000 and XP), you will usually have an option to load additional hard disk controller drivers fairly early on in the operating system installation process. In the case of Windows 2000 and XP, it will then continue to load some other drivers from the CD and, after a while, it will then prompt you to insert a floppy disk containing the hard disk controller drivers. Insert a floppy disk with your SATA controller drivers on and the installation will then proceed.

Let us know if that helps

Just to add a bit:

On the bottom of one of the first screens you see after the CD boots is Press F6 to load drivers. You need to be fairly quick here hittting F6.

The drivers are on your driver CD or the computer or motherboard's manufacturer's web site. From the CD or the web site you copy the drivers to a floppy diskette.

After Windows basic files load you will be prompted for the floppy. Then you will most likely get a screen saying to Press S to select your drivers followed my a menu from your floppy.

Thanks Jephree

sorry for the delay but Christmas took my time. Everything is fine now. I got the driver on the net and did just as you suggested. nice present, thanks ever so much.

Thanks for the update and the thanks. Glad things are up and going!

Let us know if we can help further in the future.