Why is nothing ever simple?

Replacement Sata disks sourced, purchased, plugged 1 in. Spins up, but not detected.

Turns out my Motherboard has a SATA 1 controller chip that will not work under any circumstances with SATA 2 disks, even if you tell the disks to pretend to be SATA 1 disks.

Don't suppose anyone has a linux compatable PCI SATA controller card with 2 Sata channels lying around that they don't need do they? (Note, that's PCI, not PCI-X, or PCI Express).

What a waste of an evening! Harumph!!!

Steve