I'm looking into getting a new PC right now, and after some googling around it seems that enabling SATA support was a little tricky with kernels around 2.4.21, though I realize that we've made quite a bit of progress since then. I'm looking particularly at one of the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe motherboards, with a Western Digital 120 Gb SATA drive.

Does anyone have any experience with this drive or similar configurations? I've heard a lot of good things about SATA, but I don't want to be stuck with a drive in PIO mode for any amount of time. Any information is helpful.

Thanks.

MM,

I'm very much a newbie, but I can tell you that the ASUS board you're looking at uses a Promise chip for the SATA controller. Do a search for "Promise SATA" and you'll be able to grab an eyeful. I think I've seen Mandrake 9.2 mentioned as being compatible, but that may be after installing to a good old PATA (ATA100) drive first and then loading the SATA drivers. Follow this link for drivers: http://www.promise.com/support/downl...nload_eng.asp#
Choose the Fasttrak S150 TX4 (I think) as your product. Good Luck!

Steven

obviously, you don't know nothing about this asus a7n8x deluxe.
is uses Silicon Image 3112 which wasn't Promise SATA controller.
also, the driver for the controller should be included in the cdrom that came with the board, or you might want to download newer ones.