Thanks Martin

i have the sata drive listed as present in the bios, tried with the old ide and sata type drive both show up fine in respected channels

The memory has been double checked and is ok.
it's a fresh install on new drive.
i cannot understand why it thinks it already has OS installed
and shows the boot manager
I'm not sure which key to press to freeze the post message.

All it states is press delete to enter set up,

cheers Sean