Sounds like your XP disk is pre-SP2?
a: Nope, it comes with SP2 straight from Dell
This is an nVidia chipset motherboard, it appears, in which case the SATA controller driver may not be obvious: it's part of nVidia Mediashield.
Since you don't have a floppy, you can slipstream the drivers using a package such as nLite. Although, since you have the Dell reload XP disk, I'm surprised the driver isn't already there.
Just on the off-chance, in BIOS have you checked that it's set to auto/SATA and not RAID? Your DELL recovery disk might then automagically work.
a: Yes I've cycled it a couple of times\
What's the chance that I can use the XP load option of F6 to add missing drivers and then get the computer to accept them via a memory stick?