Slackware 10.1 & ICH5 SATA Install Problems
 

Sorry if this subject has been dealt with before, however i have been searching for a while to a solution to this problem with no luck :confused:

I have a P4 3ghz system running on a Gigabyte mainboard that has a ICH5R chipset for SATA disk / raid support.

I have been trying for a while to install Slackware 10.1 with the same problem repeating itself. I run through booting from the CD, setting keyboard map etc and logon as root.

I then run cfdisk to partition the disk (2x 160gb Maxtors). I have been selecting a 4gb swap partition and the rest as a bootable root partition. Having written the table to the disk i fire up the setup prog, which seems to format the swap and root partition correctly (have tried different file systems, mainly ext3 and reiserfs).

My problems begin when the setup program starts to attempt to write to the disk, when it gives errors over space. On opening a new console and checking the mounted disks i find that the main hdd is not mounted and its attempting to install to what i can only assume is a ramdisk. I have tried changing the raid config of the disks (raid 0,1) and also non raid (setup as single disks) without any change. Manual attempts to mount the disk fails. I have had a look through the dmesg output without spotting any errors, however errors do turn up after disk access is attempted.

This is the first system i have attempted to setup Slackware with SATA so im a little confused as to what to do next.

All suggestions greatly appreciated.

Grimm.
:study:

Here's a link you might not have seen:

http://linux.yyz.us/sata/sata-status.html

I'm not sure if it will help you, but just in case.

Re: Slackware 10.1 & ICH5 SATA Install Problems
 

EDIT:
Try my web site.. "Here"

And yes this issue has been answered and re-answered a dozen times. So instead of retyping all of it out maybe just look and see if your answer is on my site.. if not feel free to write me with your issues.

If you are really desperate I have and image (CD) available that has the kernel already patched for sata (ICH5 r). It works. I use it.. the only catch is it is for 10.0 not 10.1 .. so if this bothers you, I am not sure what to tell you other then what was mentioned. I was going to install 10.1 but my test computer is downso I have4 no way of even checking the newest distro. I was going to try and do the same thing for 10.1 (I am not even sure if he included 'full' sata support this time.) Anyway...later, and let me know.

Hi all,

I had the same problem with an ICH5R chipset and SATA on Slackware.

Following Bonecrusher's idea (thank you!) I prepared a custom Slackware 10.1 install CD with Pat's kernel 2.6 from testing. There is no need to recompile anything. I wrote a mini-HOWTO about all that. Have a look here . You may find it usefull.

Regards
Lemmy

Hi all,

Thanks for your rapid response in replying to my post.

Having doing some serious reading, and spent a few hrs playing with BIOS settings I have managed to get Slackware 10.1 installed using the 2.4.29 kernel provided.

In the end I think the problem was basically a combination of BIOS SATA drive setup and hdd boot order. I have now complied the latest stable kernel (2.6.11.11 at time of post) which seems to have better support for my controller however the stock sata.i that comes with 10.1 will run the ICH5 chipset fine.

Thanks again,

Grimm.