SATA

I could really use some help.

I have Googled, visited RedHat, my mobo manufacturer, intel and Promise's
web sites posted to new groups and special interest forums but to no
avail. Perhaps I am asking the wrong questions...

I am just looking to enable a serial ata drive to operate in Linux. My
motherboard has the Intel ICH5R controller and the Promise 20376/378
controller. I have a WD Raptor, the motherboard is MSI 865PE Neo I have
the latest 2.4.20.XX kernel but I can't seem to get Linux to see my SATA
drive. I would like eventually to go to striped raid but for now I would
just settle for being able to use my new hard drive.

Surely other people are using SATA drives out there...ANY ideas at all on
how to make this work would be really appreciated. I'm happy to compile
kernel modules or even learn how to recompile the kernel if necessary, I
just need to know what to compile in or get some ideas on another way to
approach this.

Thanks for any help,

Adam

-- 
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots"

Patch the kernel to 2.4.21-ac4 or better, when doing the kernel config I
believe you will need to enable SCSI low level drivers and intel PIIX
support

What distribution are you using btw? If you are using mandrake for ex, I
know that you can simply install an updated kernel through urpmi with
SATA support enabled, no need to recompile or patch.

Thanks for your reply,

I am using RedHat 9 kernel 2.4.20.xx I think that last one is .19 or
something like that. That is the most recent update I have got from the
RedHat Udate manager and I have checked to make sure there are no more
updates. I'm not necessarily wedded to RedHat but if it was possible to
update without completely reinsatalling that would probably be good. Is
there some way that I can use what you have mentioned in redHat?

Cheers,

Adam

-- 
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots"

 Hello

 I as well have this problem, using SATA for XP and ATA for mandrake, but I
am a newbie and the "you can simply install an updated kernel through urpmi
with SATA support enabled" doen not mean  a great deal to me

I have tried the mandrake control center, and have taken all the updates
available, but nothing has changed

Can you be more explicit

Thanks for your help this would be great to be abale to chosse my boot
rather than playing xith the bios every time

Trevor

You tried Mandrake 9.2?

VIA has SATA drivers for this chipset (VT 8237) on their website

PATA requires a driver for every chipset, too.  Most distro kernels
include them all, so things "just work".  But if you've ever built your
own kernel you've seen the broad range of chipset-specific drivers that
are available.  A quick look suggests there's at least a couple dozen
IDE chipset drivers.

OK OK

What is the latest on SATA compatibility?
It sounds like we're going to need a driver
for every chipset out there like SCSI.

It would be nice if the kernel would just
work like it does with PATA.

I just built a new computer with SATA drives
and now I can't find a distro that will work.
I have an ASUS A7V600 motherboard.

Rich

Don't know if 8.2 has this capability but Mandrake 9.0, 9.1 ,9.2 will
allow you to load additional kernel modules to detect/support hardware
that the installer kernel doesn't support. 

You hit "F1 additional options" right at the beginning of installation and
use either "expert" (type expert) mode or "updatemodules" and put a floopy
with the appropriate module into the drive.

I hear you there.  I have a Siig Ultra-ATA cn2487 and all my hard-drives are
invisible to Mandrake 8.2 during the install.  This causes it to lock-up
when it gets to the partitioning step.  I am so bummed.

No you have it wrong.

DMA 16 , UDMA33, 66, 100, 133 modes all require  chipset specific support.
but all the IDE interfaces work in PIO mode without any requirement for
chipset specific stuff.

PATA drives are supported "out of the box" so a new kernel is not
nessesary. If I can't install linux in the first place, how can I
rebuild a kernel?

Thanks
Richard

But does *anybody* actually use PIO modes anymore?  Considering the
performance hit you take with PIO, I doubt it.  That's why most distro
makers compile in support for all the different IDE chipsets in their
stock kernels.