The simplest (and cheapest) solution if your motherboard turns out not to have an on-board SATA controller is to buy just the controller you need, which can be bought as a slot-in PCI card.
Note: there are a couple of pitfalls to be aware of:
The main one is the 137GB limit.... older SATA controllers (the chips on the card that do all the work) cannot cope with 48 Bit LBA addresses which are needed to properly and safely access drives and partitions bigger than 137GB. As most hard drives supplied these days are likely to be over 137GB in size and because you want to future-proof you machine a bit, it's important to get a PCI SATA controller card which can cope with 48 Bit LBA addressing. Several do not, and my advice is be suspicious and ask until you get a 'yes, this will definitely support a 300GB hard drive without any problems' type of answer - even if you don't plan on using a drive that big just now.
For drives over 137GB...
Windows 98SE is dead, I liked it in a 'if I must use a Microsoft operating system then it's ok I 'spose sort of way but it really is too old to cope with the sort of hardware that it is sometimes being asked to run on or control these days, and is no longer supported by almost anyone, Microsoft included.
If you are using Windows 2000 you will need an operating system update to ensure that the drive is correctly identified and operated by Windows. In theory, Microsoft Service Pack 3 for Windows 2000 (and service pack 4 for that matter) should include this. My personal experience on the machine I was working on when running up against this problem is that they do not, or at least a machine with a fresh install of Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4 installed was only prepared to see a new 250GB Maxtor SATA drive as a 118GB drive, and then kept corrupting the data on it.
The solution was to go to
www.maxtor.com and download and install the "big drive enabler" which is a (free) software update for Windows, which basically tells Windows how to control and use the disk without going haywire and losing and corrupting all the data on it every other time it is accessed. It may be that if the drive you have is not from Maxtor then you may need to download an equivalent update from the manufacturer of you hard drive's website, not sure as I've only bought Maxtor drives for years as they are the only manufacturer that provides a UK point of return in the unlikely event of a warranty failure (I'm in the UK), unlike the others which require me to ship the darned thing to Belgium or Holland at CONSIDERABLE expense (hard drives are quite heavy when it comes to packing them properly to post internationally).
Windows XP service pack 2 (NOT service pack 1 or earlier) should be able to support 48 LBA addressing. I don't know as I don't like it and don't use it, (and don't miss it) but according to all the technical info available it should be ok.
Then there is SATA-II....
Standard SATA is faster for several reasons than parallel ATA which maxes out (if you're lucky) at 133 mb/s transfer - Maxtor hard drives only - all the rest can only do a maximum of 100 mb/s on a good day. SATA has a theoretical max of 150 mb/s which may not seem like much but there are other factors involved which I'll not go into.
SATA-II provides the hot-swapping facility which many won't need, but many do - the ability to disconnect the hard drive (providing you're not accessing it at the time) without needing to switch the PC off first - handy if you're a systems administrator and the SATA drives are in caddies - you can pull one out and fit another one without having to shut your server down first. For most people though SATA-II gives tthe only real bonus of being able to get a maximum transfer rate of 300 mb/s which is a phenomenal (theoretical maximum) improvement over the ATA 100 and ATA 133 parallel drives - especially when you bear in mind that the hard drive is inherently the slowest part of any computer. I've not sat down and worked out the exact ratio taking everything into account, but at a rough guess I would say that the hard disk is 500,000 times slower than the electronics on a modern desktop PC - in other words most of the time the processor and general electronic stuff in your PC is sitting around twiddling its thumbs waiting for the hard disk to hurry up and deliver the information needed so the electronics can carry on with the task it's doing.
SATA-II drives are about the same price as SATA-I, sometimes a few pounds dearer, sometime cheaper, or even much cheaper (which is nice!). Very recently I bought a 250GB SATA-II drive that was about £10 ($21) cheaper than its SATA-I equivalent. It pays to shop around.
SATA-II controllers are dearer, sometimes twice the price or more, and if you don't think you're likely to make use of the extra speed by actually getting an SATA-II hard drive any time soon then it may be worth saving your pennies until they come down in price - but if you fancy the considerable speed and performance improvement the two together will give to your PC and can afford it then go for it. They will come down in price a lot, but it may be up to a year I suspect.
SATA-II controllers are backwards compatible - in other words an SATA-II controller can access a standard SATA (SATA-I/150) drive without any problems although there can be a few issues going the other way which I can't go into here or you'll get even more bored. Mostly SATA-II uses the same connectors as SATA-I although there are occasional variations.
Finally, newer SATA drives more often than not require a newer style SATA power connector. If you've an older PC and power supply it won't have the necessary power connector for SOME (but not all) SATA hard drives, but not to worry as you can get a PC drive power connector (a.k.a. 'Molex') to SATA power adaptor for peanuts in most computer dealers and certainly cheaply via eBay. It will depend on the drive you've got as to whether or not you will need one.
Basically don't rush out to buy a new motherboard just yet - a PCI SATA controller will do just fine, and you might need a Molex to SATA power adaptor as well.
If you can afford it get a SATA-II controller and SATA-II drive - certainly other than for reasons of pricing at crafty dealers and what you can afford, there is no reason not to buy SATA-II drives from now on instead of SATA-I ones which are rapidly going to become 'old stock' I suspect.
There is a bit more to it than I've mentioned but I think this reply is long-winded and tough enough to follow as it is. Happy hunting for a PCI SATA card!
