New sata drive. Old XP.

Whats the easiest way to get an existing install of XP to recognize a new sata hard drive?

Does the computer you're going to install XP onto have a floppy drive?

Are you wanting to copy the windows XP install to the new harddrive?
Otherwise just open up the computer and connect it to the main board and boot up and it will find and install the hardrive

The problem is getting windows to see the hard drive after I connected it and booted. Bios sees it but when I go to disk management to format it, it's not listed. This is the first time I've installed a new sata3 HD on a windows XP install so I thought it might need special drivers to see it. I tried cloning the new drive with the old IDE drive (using Acronis) and then boot from the new drive but all I got was the BSOD. I know I'm doing something wrong but not sure what it is.

Operating systems such as Windows XP/2000 may not automatically recognize the SATA controller in the system. This is especially true if the hardware is newer than the operating system. The SATA controller will either be embedded on the motherboard or a SATA add-on card. Windows 7 and Vista will usually recognize a SATA motherboard controller. SATA add-on cards will more than likely prompt for a driver. In either case, if the drive is not recognized, then you will need a SATA controller device driver.

SpywareDr is quite right. I have also seen where a jumper is also required for the operation.
What motherboard exactly? We can try to find the drivers.
The BSOD is because windows doesnt recognize the controller

Thanks guys for your input, I knew it was drivers from the start, so downloaded the latest drivers and installed them but XP still didn't see the drive. The MB is MSI NF725GM-p43 My eventual goal is to clone the old drive onto the new one because the old one is getting too full.
This is my elderly neighbors computer, if it where mine I'd just upgrade to Win7 and be done with it. But I can't convince him of that. His car is over 30 years old and he has no plans of getting a new one so prying XP out of his hands would be an impossibility.

It's always easiest to wait till they get totally hacked, and he will trust me on that.
XP is doomed period and it will be getting worse by the month.

Is the Sata drive configured as IDE in the Bios ?

Try to connect your drive to a different slot on the motherboard.