Hello there.

This year I have started a course in college which involves a lot of basic/intermediate linux stuff. I'm quite new to linux, althogh I'm not totally clueless.

I decided that I'll install Mandrake 10.1 on my computer at home, to practice what I have learnt in class, this is where my problem begins:

My harddrive is a SATA drive, yet my motherboard does not support onboard SATA, so I purchased a PCI Sata controller, an "ALi SATA/RAID Controller". As far as I know, ALi have only made one controller, so the version shouldnt be an issue here. The CD that I got contains drivers for every windows version under the sun, but a distinct lack of linux drivers.

My problem is that Mandrake setup does not recognise the SATA Drive, which is quite annoying, seeing as linux wont install onto nothing.

I was wondering where I can find a driver for this? Or even a generic driver, and I was also wondering how on earth I'd load these into Mandrake Setup? (Booted from DVD)

Thanks in advance, eager to hear back!

It is easier to install Linux on a PATA hard drive that is connected to the on-board primary IDE controller. Remove the Windows drive and use another PATA drive there. Move the Windows drive to Master Slave slot. I recommend leaving the Windows drive disconnected while you are installing Linux.

I suggest Mandrake 9.2 because it is a lot better than Mandrake 10 or higher.

I suggest using Knoppix version 3.7 if you do not want to install Linux.