Ubuntu and Caviar don't mix

I finally got round to looking at a PC that I bought way back in December. I wanted to use a different hard drive to the one that came with the PC (which has Windows XP installed). I stripped another computer down and tried to use the hard drive from it. The drive in question was an old Western Digital Caviar, model WD450AA. This is 45GB hard drive running at 5400rpm. But it has been around seen 2000. Very old. Anyways I tried to install ubuntu (server) on it. Ubuntu did not recognise the hard drive and complained that "No hard drive was detected". Windows 98 fdisk did find the drive and anyways that hard drive had been running Windows 2000. I replaced that drive with the hard disk that came with the PC (a seagate 40GB drive) and that was recognised by the ubuntu installation. Of course, I terminated the installation at the point.

I was seriously trying to bash my head and get it to work. But sanity or more to point sleep got the better of me and I gave up.

I could ghost the seagate and then ghost the image on to the caviar. But it is an old device. I am trying to save money at the moment but I've decided to bit the bullet on this one and ordered a seagate 80gb drive for 25 quid.