[plug] re installind linux

[Gavin Chester]

   >-----Original Message-----
   >From: plug-bounces at plug.org.au [mailto:plug-bounces at plug.org.au]On
   >Behalf Of chris sisman
   >Sent: Monday, 22 May 2006 16:49
   >To: plug at plug.org.au
   >Subject: [plug] re installind linux
   >
   >
   >to Tomas G.
   >It is a SATA hard drive.
   >The disc cant be faulty as I have tried @ sets
   >chris from albany

Chris,

I've read your occasional postings and felt your anguish and heavily
contained frustration at your problems, and I've admired your determination
to keep giving it a go :-)  It shouldn't be that hard, however for this
respondent I think I just saw a glimmer of why it is.  In a word: SATA.

I will probably be shot down because I haven't researched this matter that
much, but recently I had my first experience with a SATA drive in my son's
PC and it was a mixed bag.  SuSE installed with no problems and knoppix runs
well off DVD, too.  However, he wanted Fedora on that drive and that's where
we struck trouble.  Sometimes it wouldn't install, sometimes it would appear
to install but then rebooting caused kernel panic.  We (ignorantly) tried
passing various parameters to the kernel (like ide=nodma, acpi=off and so
on).  Again, sometimes it wouldn't install, sometimes it would appear to
install but fail after reboot.

I did a VERY quick bit of googling and found reports that SATA support is
inconsistent and dependant on the type of drive controller you have on your
motherboard or your type of plug-in controller card.  If you can't find a
distribution that supports your SATA directly you may find drivers
somewhere.  But, I think I remember reading that you were having your first
crack at Linux, so that is probably too complex to try (it would be for this
near-newbie).

Other than what I said above, the ultimate solution seems one of two
options:
1/  see if your BIOS allows support for legacy ATA drives.  It may be worded
differently, but look for something that allows older drives or older
operating systems to function with your SATA drive; or
2/ failing that (1) working for you (it didn't for my son) the last option
is to install a PATA drive (the recently superseded IDE type, you know?) and
then everything should be fine for whatever distribution you want.

Sadly, you may have to wait until the release of the next kernel version to
see improved SATA compatibility and to be able to use that super-fast drive
:-(.  At least that's what I've read.

Let us know if I'm barking up the wrong tree, because I'm about to embark on
my option 2/ with my son's PC.

HTH

Gavin.