SATA support?

[Robin Laing]

Aad Rijnberg wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I don't know if this is the proper mailing list, but I have a small
> problem. I bought a Dell Dimension 8400 which contains an Intel 925X
> chipset and has a SATA harddisk, and FC3 won't see the drive. I have
> (temporarily) mounted another (PATA) harddisk on the primary port of the
> 925X. Then installation and use of FC3 is not a problem. The drawback of
> this solution is that I had to remove a DVD-ROM player to be able to
> connect this harddisk.
> 
> For 2 reasons I would like to be able to access the SATA harddisk from
> within FC3 in future:
> 1) be able to mount the Windows partition on the SATA disk so that
>    information can be transferred between Linux and Windows.
> 2) use the DVD-ROM player again
> 
> I know about a solution where you can change the "SATA operation"
> setting in the BIOS from Raid Autodetect/AHCI to Raid Autodetect/ATA,
> but then Windows does not boot anymore and re-installation is needed.
> Therefore I would like to wait for the Linux kernel to support the AHCI
> mode of the Intel 925X.
> 
> Does the current version of the kernel already support AHCI mode of the
> Intel 925X chipset? If yes, is it then by default not compiled in? What
> settings are affected?
> When the current kernel does not yet support it, does anybody know when
> (the Fedora version of) the kernel will support AHCI of the Intel 925X
> chipset?
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> Regards,
> Aad
> 

I did a quick search more to learn about AHCI and the intel site show 
that special drivers need to be unpacked before installing in 
unattended mode in Windows.  It probably means that you would have to 
use a driver disk even in windows.

Have you read this.
http://www.linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html

I have a SiS based MB and the SATA works like a dream but not as RAID. 
  After reading I learned that I might as well use the Linux software 
RAID as it provided more tools.

Look for a module to enable for your chipset.  This is what I had to do.

Probably not what you wanted to hear.
-- 
Robin Laing