Hi everybody,
I have read all the posts here.. and I have tried a lot of combinations in order to get my sata hdd working.. but all was for nothing... This is the third day trying... I am really tired... so finally I decided to ask you, may be you could help me in this.
The problem is that I have a Maxtor Diamond 9 Sata HDD on a MSI MB with Intel 865 chipset. I have 2 hdd-s, one of them in which is installed the system is a normal IDE drive... but I just want my SATA hdd to be recognised by the system.. in windows XP is working fine.. I have a lot of data in it.. and I want to use it (like 160 GB).
I have slackware 9.1 with kernel 2.6.0 and it's not working. I have tried with kernel 2.6.8 also and nothing. When I put in BIOS P-ATA as primary it works fine.. but no SATA on linux.. I can't detect my /dev/sda (I made mount -t ntfs /dev/sda /mnt/sata and nothing).
If I put them working together : S-ATA + P-ATA the 2.6.0 kernel stacks... and the 2.6.8 kernel keeps saying: "Disabling IRQ #18" and the sata drive still not working...
I would really apreciate some help, thanks.

When I try to mount my SATA hdd I get something like this in 2.6.6 and 2.6.8.1 kernels with libata patches included:
root@PESADO:/mnt# mount -t ntfs /dev/sda /mnt/sata (my SATA is NTFS formated)
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda,
or too many mounted file systems
root@PESADO:/mnt# mount -t ntfs /dev/sda2 /mnt/sata
mount: /dev/sda2 is not a valid block device
So, it's obiously that it's recognizing my SATA drive in /mnt/sata... but why can't I mount it?
And what is even more strange is that in BIOS I have to stay with P-ATA as Primary.. because if I put in BIOS P-ATA as both (I don't know why but that's the only way in windows XP to see my cd-rom's ) then I get some message like : Disabling IRQ #18 all the time... I mean repeating the same message w/o stoping.
Some help please?!
Thanks.

Did you make the directory /mnt/sata. If you make one partition on the 160 GB hard drive, Linux will see it as /dev/sda1. The /dev/sda is the device it self. The partition where your data is located is noted by a numeric value like /dev/sda1 which designates the first partition on the drive and it is a primary partition. After you make a directoy in /mnt and you know what partition you want to mount, it should work. I suggest using "mount -t ntfs -o ro /dev/sda1 /mnt/sata" instead using "mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /mnt/sata".

Info from this site may help.

http://linux.yyz.us/sata/

Walt

Oki, I made it on mounting my sata... my sata was on the /dev/sata5 and /dev/sata6 ... I don't know why exactly since I have just 2 partitions... but anyway... the problem is now another one: as I told you before, I can't put my bios as in windows XP (That is P-ATA controller BOTH ), I can put it just on Primary. And this is not good because in this way I can't use my cd-rom and my dvd. What can I do? When I put it on BOTH (As I have on winXP and it's working fine) I get some message: Disabling IRQ #18 repeating every 5 seconds.
Thx for help.

In 865 or 875 intel chipsets, they can switch the Primary IDE channel from PATA to SATA and back to PATA if an operating system does not have SATA drivers. If you have CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, JAZ, ZIP, or a PATA hard drive on the Primary channel and you switch to SATA, those devices will be deactivatesd. You will have to place PATA drives on the secondary channel if you want to use SATA hard drives. The manual should have a paragraph stating this.

You can add noapic to the append line in lilo config file or in the kernel line in grub config file.

Oki, I will try this thing.
What should noapic do? So I can figure out if it's working or not .

I forgot to tell you I think... I have 3 hdd's 2 are IDE and 1 is SATA. The Slackware system is on one of the IDE's hdd's and the WindowsXP system is on the other one IDE hdd so I can't boot my PC if SATA is on Primary (in BIOS PATA on secondary). What should I do in this case? I want to keep my hdd's configuration like it's now. For now the only option is PATA on Primary... but as I told you I can't see my CD-Rom and my DVD in this case. And if I put like PATA BOTH in BIOS I get some "Disabling IRQ #18" repeating for ever on linux... but in WinXP is working. It's really anoying the fact that I can't use my cd-rom's drives because of my SATA hdds. Any help pls?

You can do two things buy Highpoint RocketRaid 1520. The reason that I suggest that controller is it has open source drivers for kernel version 2.4.x and 2.6.x. Promise and Silicon Image has drivers for Redhat 9 and plus they do not have any open source drivers. Another way is get a SATA to PATA converter. Both devices cost about the same.

Electro, but if I put that convertor to my SATA hdd I will not lose the SATA hdd speed? There is no other way in Linux? Why in Windows my Sata is working together with my cdrom's and in linux it's issuing those problems? That is what I would like to solve.. I think buying something to convert my SATA on a IDE hdd is a very brutal solution... I mean it's easy but brutally in the same time.
At least give me some hints about what could I do? Even if it's a little complicated (but not too much ).
Thanks.

Hard drives rarely hit 150 megabytes per second because of filesystem overhead, controller, and PCI can only transfer about 133 megabytes. Common sense should tell you there is something fishy. PCI bus can not go any faster than 133 MB/sec but they are stating SATA that it can transfer 150 MB/sec. Buying SATA to PATA will reduce the speed to about a megabyte less than just using SATA controller. The 150 megabytes per second is not correct. Its really 150 megabits per second. Check SATA's site and you will understand more about it.

If you do not want to use a SATA to PATA converter or buy a SATA controller, you can download INTEL SATA driver (module) and try to compile it.