I didn't use Linux for quite time so I didn't know it's latest version. As I browse www.redhat.com I get lost in the huge amount of information.

I want to ask if Redhat stop announce higher version after RH9 ?

Also, will Red Hat Enterprise Linux v.4 or v.3 support SATA HDD ?

Anyway, I'll try Fedora as suggested!

When you do get a new-enough kernel (2.6.something), look in the SCSI low_level drivers for SATA. They're treated as SCSI disks nowadays.

I think RHEL v.4 supports SATA, although I would have to look at the kernel details to be sure that it supports yours; but v. 3 has hit-and-miss support at best.

I would reiterate the advice to use RH9's free successor, Fedora.  The latest versions should support your setup.
fedora.redhat.com

RHEL4 does support SATA. 4.3 i have personally used

What's the full name of RHEL (Red hat ???) ? Besides, I had downloaded fedora core 6 from internet. Will windows based antivirus software like Norton or Mcafee can be used to check if
downloaded package is virus free. Now I don't have any linux / unix installation yet.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux.  

I doubt if your Fedora download has viruses that would infect Linux, but it does have media integrity check available when you start the disk.  You could also do a md5sum on it, then compare this to the value published on Fedora's site (and available in their ftp tree (do a google search for md5sum if you don't know what this means).

hi

RHEL = Red Hat Enterprise Linux
mostly all linux distributions are free from virus.  in fact there is NO virus in any of the ISO distributions nor are there any virus circulating for Linux machines.  There was once a virus developed for linux machines "just to prove a point" but was not circulated.  that is one of the biggest plus in using a linux distribution

I would like to hear the OP's experience since this question.

If the OP does not have a specific requirement to use a RedHat product (eg RHEL or Fedora), I would also like to point him towards other more popular distros.  Ubuntu is very popular these days, and with this popularity comes the benefit of a large collection of easy-to-install software.  The reason for this is that developers try to support the most popular Linux distros with native packaging of their programs.

Finally, Many distros nowadays include a LiveCD version, which allows you to see how well it runs because it boots into the desktop from the CD without installing anything on your hard drive.  There are some caveats (some hardware requires special config changes for the desktop to start up, and you may have somewhat lower performance while running from a CD, but mostly it "just works" and the idea is to see if it works, not to test performance from a CD)

Also I would just re-itterate my original point that Linux needs to support the S-ATA controller, not the drive itself  : And recent versions of Linux basically supports all motherboard onboard SATA controllers and just about any add-on S-ATA controller that exists today (I don't know of any exceptions)