SATA Drives
 

Hi all. I’m new to Linux (I’m a windows sys admin, sad as that is!). I want to try out Linux at home with the view of introducing it to our network, primarily for file serving but possibly for web and ftp. I feel I need to familiarise myself with Linux first but I have a question.
I have Red Hat 9, which I have installed previously on an older machine (PIII 600) but which I never got a chance to fully use before upgrading to a newer box. The problem I have - I know I have a problem as I have tried using the Lindows OS4.0 bootable CD to start my new computer, which it couldn’t, is that my new box, PIV 3.0Ghz, uses SATA Seagate 80GB Barracuda drives. Does Linux support SATA drives? If so, which distro has them packaged already or am I up shite creek without a paddle?
Any help would be appreciated.
Cheers
Shane

Linux does support SATA drivers. What SATA chipset do you have? I would guess the newest versions of Redhat, Mandrake, and Suse probably support SATA out of the box. I know the kernel has support for it as I am using it as we speak with Gentoo Linux.

Intel ICH5R (I think) I am work and the specs sheet for the chipset online isnt very helpful. I'll check later and get back to you. I'll try installing it tonight and see if it picks up the SATA drives.

Cheers