Short answer...My father xD

Hm .. 2 years ago i was with a friend in cologne and we met his brother there, who heard hammerfall me and my friend heard hearts on fire all day long and when i was at home i heard blood bound and natural high and on christmas i got my first album: "Threshold"

The first HammerFall song was "The Way of the Warrior". Not the usual one, I guess
A friend really forced me to listen it because he loved the refrain so much, especially the backing vocals Until then I listened more to bands like AC/DC. Since then I nearly listen to metal only. Luckilly it's a very manifold genre. I prefer True- and Powermetal.

I found them on Pandora somehow a few months ago, and fell in love with them. Turns out my brother had all of their albums and I just didn't know haha.

M brother took me inside the world of heavy metal, he listens to groups like Hammerfall, Blind Guardian, Mettalica, Edguy... And with that i`ve formed my heavy metal music: Hmmerfall, Edguy, Dragonforce, a bit of Blind Guardian, a bit of Mettalica...
And if I count the time... I`ve been listening to heavy metal since I was like 6 so nearly 10 years XDXD

I was on pandora.com listening to music because the radio stations where I live are absolutely awful and HammerFall came on. Wow, they are great. I had to immediately go to amazon.com and order a few CDs. I am about as old as the band members, so I grew up with great metal and then in 1993 it just turned awful. HammerFall is a breath of fresh air.

HammerFall is more than only a breath =)

first was when my music teacher show my school class the curling version of Hearts on Fire. I did not like them then, but maybe one or two years later I heard the song again and I started listen to other song and now I´m a huge fan of Hammerfall HEAVY METAL

Valaina showed me. Lol.

Have you ever tried Stratovarius?
Or Sonata Arctica?
They could very well fit in your list.
Both are big Power Metal bands that are in a way quite similar to the ones in your list.