Toshiba Sattelite A105-S2001 with a SATA drive. Using Linux from scratch 2.6.8. Used working PATA to load SATA drive, then recompiled the kernel with all SATA drivers I could find as modules. When booting it kernel panics and says "VFS: cannot open root device "303". The problem is it it not assigning any drive partition to this drive. It shows my cdrom as hdc, right before the panic, but nothing for the hard drive. I tried adding append="ide-reverse" to lilo and rerunning lilo -- still nothing. How do I correct lilo when I don't know what partition/drive name. I've also tried typing in some various drives at the boot prompt, i.e. linux boot=/dev/sda, but still nothing. There are no options in the bios to change any SATA settings. Any ideas?

If you're booting from a SATA drive, you must have the support for your SATA chipset built into the kernel. (As it has to mount the drive to find the module)

Alternatively, you could use an initrd, but just building it in is generally easier.

Yes, but I have no idea what chipset this model toshiba runs. I haven't been able to locate any white sheets on my internet searches. Obviously the 2.6 built-in chipsets for SATA are not it. I plan on exploring initrd some more, but like you I would have preferred to build it in as a module.

Well, if you can post the output of 'lspci', I'd be happy to help you find the right module.

Can't post lspci because of the kernel panic. I'll try and get the initrd to work, or some other way of modifying my PATA boot cd to get it to boot.

Just boot from any livecd (Knoppix, etc.) and post lspci. It's just a hardware listing, so it should be pretty distribution agnostic.

I used pc linux cd and this it the main components of lspci:

Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: unknown device 5a31 (rev 01)
PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: unknown device 5a3f
IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc: unknown device 4379 (rev 80)
SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc: unknown device 4372 (rev 81)
IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc: unknown device 4376 (rev 80)
Class 0403: ATI Technologies Inc: unknown device 437b (rev 01)
ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: unknown device 4377 (rev 80)
PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: unknown device 4371 (rev 80)
VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc: unknown device 5a62
CardBus bridge: ENE Technology Inc: CB1410 Cardbus Controller (rev 01)

Any help with this is greatly appreciated!

The driver for your SATA controller is the 'sata_sil' driver. This may show as a "Silicon Image Systems SATA" driver or similar, but it shows as the driver that supports your ATI controller. My guess is that SiS designed the chip for ATI. In any case, building that into the kernel should help you immensely.

I have that driver already loaded, but still getting the same kernel panic with not drive designation.

./usr/src/linux-2.6.8/drivers/scsi/sata_sil.o
./usr/src/linux-2.6.8/drivers/scsi/sata_sil.c
./sys/bys/pci/drivers/sata_sil

Could there be something else in my configuration that I didn't turn on or turned on, but could be conflicting with this _sil driver or SATA in general?

Thanks again for all the input so far!!!!

Does it show anything about the SATA controller during the boot process?

That's what is very strange. It only shows IDE. Also, in WinXP it only shows IDE, but I pulled the drive and it is definitely SATA (Fujitsu-60gb). That's why I had tried the append="ide=reverse" in lilo. I built into my kernel all the SATA drivers, as well as, ATI and Silicon IDE drivers, but still nothing.

Alright... might be a bit of a chipset support issue. As much as a pain as it might be, I recommend upgrading your kernel. Newer versions should better recognize 'newish' hardware.

I'm on 2.6.8. I just finished compiling 2.6.13.3 on an IDE hard drive. Nothing jumped out at me as far as any new SATA chipsets. I'll try the 2.6.13 tomorrow and in the mean time download the very latest and greatest (2.6.18 ?). I'll let you know how I make out. Thanks again!

The later ones may have had support for even more chipsets added to each driver.

Matir I hope you're still there. I've loaded 2.6.17.7 and it had an additional Silicon SATA drive. I recompiled and now I do see a drive designation/partition on the boot. The problem is it is going so fast, that I can't catch it. I've tried pause/break on the kb (there is no scroll lock)is not pausing. It looks like possibly ata1, ata2, etc. I tried editing lilo.conf and fstab for all references to hda to ata, then tried booting with linux root=/dev/ata3 (I'm using ext3 file system), but it still panics the same, but now references ata instead of 303. Any ideas how to pause/break, so I can catch the drive/partition designations.

Thanks again for all the help you've givent to me thus far!