I am a complete newbie to linux. Looked at it for the first time in my life a week ago when I loaded it. I have an ASUS P5WD2 Premium MB and Slackware doesn't seem to recognize any of my IDE controllers except for the primary one. Not sure what to do. If you need more information please let me know.

The 2nd ide is controlled by raid chip. And you have 4 sata inputs. Look in mob to see what cd/dvdrom is connected to. If connected to ide(-iteraid)(wide thin ribbon) slot then see if you can turn off the raid option. If connected to sata slot(narrow thicker ribbon) then you will need sata.i or test26.s kernel( both which includes ide) not default install kernel.
Google your mob spec or read manual before making any changes. If you have XP then look in Device Manager for cd/dvdrom and see how it is labelled(ide or sata). You can look there for all hardware and write down how everything is listed:hard drive,modem,nic,etc. Is video on-boad or separate card(pic-express or agp?) Get all info. Be sure to turn off any antivirus in BIOS. Good luck.

The 2nd and 3rd IDE connectors are handled by an ITE IT211F controller chip. The 2.4 kernel does not come with drivers for this chip, though you can download drivers from the ITE web site (http://www.ite.com.tw/software_download/software_download2.asp). You can either build them as a module or insert the drivers into the kernel source tree (not a task for beginners).

Thank you for the reply. I will try it tommarow.