Hello Bonecrusher,

The Hard Drives are connected to a brand new motherboard x86 CPU, I do not know the specs of the motherboard off hand do you need to know them? I will look it up.

System Overview:
Pentium 3.0GHz
1024MB DDR2 SDRAM
2 separate CD Drives
2 separate 160GB Serial ATA Hard Drives (Raw devices)
Several USB ports…(6)

All connected devices and peripheral devices are recognized by anaconda install except the 2 SATA drives.
I am prompted to load additional drivers from a CD or Diskette in order for RHEL 3 to proceed to the next set up screens <- all of this happens prior to the real install.

This is the first development machine, once RHEL is installed and working properly it is going to be connected to other identical machines. Network of 10 development machines.

Thanks for helping,
- Jimmy

Jimmy:

Yes! We need the MoBo info. Anything you can get a ahold of. I am not as familiar with Red Hat as I use Slackware, but as far as the kernel goes it is the same. (More or less). Anyway, get the info on your chipset (SATA) and we can proceed from there. (if you can't find that out, just get me NAME of the MoBo (Motherboard) and serial # and I will try and look it up for you...) It would seem the bad news is that you will probably have to recompile a kernel if RHEL isn't 'seeing' your drives (but you should do this anyway-keep reading...), the GOOD news is that once you do this you can dup it to all the other systems (Seeing as how they are the same boards...) so once we get you up and going on this system your work is done other then formatting/partitioning/copying.

These other computer have to be identical! As in same Ethernet cards/mice/etc /etc - if they are you will only need to compile one kernel). It is always a good idea to compile the kernel anyway as it will be finetuned (so to speak) for that particular system (or 9 other systems in your case). By fine tuning the kernel you make it smaller (faster sorta) and leave out all the crap you don't need. You may technically not need to do this with Red Hat, but believe me, it is a good idea. (And probably a necessatiy in your case i.e. SATA drives not being recognized...) You can also enable 'hotplugging' (something that loads the kernel as bit and pieces 'modules' and that way it can be used a modfular kernel .. (changes itself automatically and only loads what is needed by your system..) which is probably what RedHat already has the kernel built as...)

And one other thing... you keep mentioning 'RAW' drives. What do you mean by that??? Well get back to me.

bc

(EDIT...)
PS:
I was just looking at web site for RHEL and which one do you have? AS/ES? etc? And just wanted to point out that they do have a toll free phone # for help. (I am more then happy to help you, but RedHat is pretty good about tech support and they may very well have a patch for your particular system already..) but .. feel free to let me help if you still want to.. Either way let me know. And if you figure out something else from them, write it here so it may help others!!!
(EOE)

Hello Bonecrusher,

Last week I bought a brand new set of "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 AS" CD ROMs from Red Hat on an academic subscription. I have not contacted their tech support yet because according to them I would have to purchase a Standard or Premium package and unfortunately I just don't the money.

If you know of any other forums or specific people I should ask for support please let me know because I am just starting out - and I thought this would be a lot easier.

I looked for specs on the MoBo (mother board) and the documentation that came with the PC states it is a mother board, Oh great that is really specific! The hard drives are raw, they are completely unformatted drives without any file system or block size specified. That's raw!

I loaded XP on another system to get more of an idea on the mother boards. They're Intel x86 based CPUs - ACPI Multiprocessor PCs, with a Intel 82801FB LPC Interface Controller 2640 and a Intel 82801FR SATA AHCI Controller. Does this give more of a picture?

Tonight I tried again, and when I watched anaconda begin the preliminary install I see it recognizing the 2 separate CD ROM drives and giving them hda and hdb drive settings. Could the additional CD drives be the problem??? If you were to count all the drives on the system it would look like this: A: Floppy C: Maxtor 160 GB SATA D: SEAGATE 160 GB SATA E: CD RW F: CD RW then after that the USB Ports take on more drive letters when they're used. This is a lot of drives for a mother board.

I appreciate your help,
- Jimmy

Since your just starting out, and don't have any more money to throw at another linux distro, you may have to use a kernel that is compiled for your particular system(s).

I looked that chipset up in google. I knew just because it was Intel that it had to be of the ICH type.. turns out it is a newer chipset called "ICH6r" which definitely can be made to work with Linux. (Matter of fact it is similar to the kind I run here.) But as I mentioned since the version of RH you have doesn't like it, you will have to re-compile the kernel. There are plenty of tutorials out there on how to do this. You first need to get a new kernel (2.6.4 or newer) (If you don't have one as new as that already in your distribution)..

When you configure the kernel, you need to check (Under SCSI/Low Level Drivers) SATA / ICH5/ICH6 type. Also, before this you need to make sure that SATA is UNCHECKED under ATA Driver section (This is the old IDE type driver).
Then compile. this will introduce the LIBATA code into the kernel and get your drives up and going. Once you have a stable kernel you should be running smoothly.

* The problem you have is common enough, though. How do you install to SATA drives first if the distro isn't recognising them in the first place? You need an installation before you can compile a kernel..and you can't install linux without a new compile!
What came first the chicken or the egg? Ha.

You may want to ask over on the Red Hat distro area (On here), or RehHat forums on RH's site, and ask if anyone knows any easier way?
Sorry I can't be of more use!

( EDIT: )
Found this while I was poking around for you:
Compiling the Linux Kernel the Red Hat way.
( EOE )


bc

PS:

I do have a precompiled kernel here, but it was originally made for Slackware v10..(Read on my web site below).

By definition linux kernel should work on any distro, but of course red hat tends to like to be proprietary to some degree. (I am not sure about it.. ask around about this..) I am not putting Red Hat down, I personally think they have some very intelligent ppl working for them and have made great strides at making Linux a household name. But....if you think my kernel I compiled for SATA would work for you and help you somehow then be my guest and download it. I dunno if it would help you are not, but it does have every newer type of SATA compiled into it... (LIBATA code that is)....? Good Luck!!!

No your ONLY problem is simply the kernel is made to recognise your type of SATA chipset. The cdroms/hard drives/ and anything else or just fine I'm sure.

Believe me when I say to you that isn't alot of drives. I have A:-W: on one of my systems! Plus a drive Z: as network drive under XP.

That is just how I partitioned 3 SATA plus 1 E-IDE drives. just under a terrabyte of data and about 20+ partitions. Works FINE!

Hey Bonecrusher,

I posted this issue on Red Hat's List redhat-list@redhat.com and also I sent an email to Dell Technical Support support@dell.com.

No word back from Red Hat List but Dell has replied with their standard excuse message stating my system was optimized for Windows XP and that they do not support any alterations to my system. The alteration obviously is the extra Hard Drive and attempt to install Red Hat Linux.

I replied back to Dell with "I would encourage Dell not to use their standard excuse why Dell does not offer help installing Red Hat Linux 3 on a brand new Dell system. Any other help, or links would be very much appreciated." After all there is such much hype recently by Dell saying they support RHEL 3.

Would you suggest next?

The idea of recompiling the kernel is daunting; I have not idea how to do this.
Also should I repost my issue on another message board?
How about other addresses to email my issue to?

Thanks,
- Jimmy

My guess is they are going to tell you you need a new kernel (read - recompile). The only other forum I can suggest is the Red Hat one on LinuxQuestions here? Did you cross post to the red hat forum here?

Bonecrusher,

I have a dual boot Win XP / RHEL now installed and running. The factory settings on the BIOS prevented the RHEL installation from recognizing the Hard Drives. I plan on writing a How To for the Red Hat forum so that anyone else who encounters this can look it up. The last glitch to work out is the wireless keyboard and mouse that comes with the system. RHEL does not recognize it. Currently I am using a PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse I bought from Walmart but I would really like to eliminate having to plug in these devices every time I want to use linux. I am going to write to customer service at Red Hat and see if they could point me in the direction of drivers.

Thanks for your help; do you have any experience with getting wireless device drivers for linux?

I appreciate it,
- Jimmy

Hello All,

Sorry - newbie here. Need some advise/help with trying to get RH to see my sata sil 3112 disks?

I have managed to get it installed on a separate IDE disk and it shows the kernel as Redhat linux Ent AS 2.4.21.4 EL and then after getting the updates it shows the kernel as 2.4.21.20 EL. During the updates if even picked up the sata hardware and added a driver but its NOT installed:

/usr/src/linux/2.4.21.20 EL/drivers/scsi/sata
/lib/modules/2.4.21.20 EL/kernel/drivers/sata

But I dunno what to do with em?

Is there anyway to create a driver disk - so that I can do a fresh install using the free disk space so that I can boot windows as well as RH on my disks using the Sil 3112 Raid controller?

I have read... and read... and read so many forums - that I dunno what to do anymore. Surely somebody out there was able to get Sata working on Linux using a Abit NF7 v2.0 nForce2 board?

So do I need to re-compile the kernel? how do I use it to run a fresh install and by using the current RHEL AS bootup CD? do I need to add this Medley or libata stuff?

There are RH linux drivers on the Silicon Image site - but they are for RH 7, 8 and 9.0. Reading the readme's it appears to have instuctions for adding it to a already-installed-system - but not one from scratch.... - although I have loaded the .img on to disk loaded the RH 9.0 driver - but I guess its not for the right system as it still cannot see my hardware. It also mentions using a bootable GRUB disk – which I now have…. But I am still confused as to what I need to do regarding a clean fresh install for Windows & Linux

If I get this working at some point - will it actually see the 2 disks as 1 large one? i.e. 1 x sda? Instead of the hde/hdg?

Can anybody help, and advise what I need to do, its so damn confusing.....

Any help, tips, suggestions - would be moat apprciated. I dont really wanna give up at such an early stage....

The documentation I have for the Silicon Image driver advises the following……

#######################################################################

# Silicon Image SiI SATA controller #

# RedHatLinux Driver #

#######################################################################



1. OVERVIEW

This driver disk adds support for SiI SATA controller that is otherwise

not supported by the RedHatLinux installation program.

Supported RedHatLinux versions:



* RedHatLinux 7.3/8.0/9.0



2. INSTALLATION



2.0 For detailed information about RedHat installation visit:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/l.../install-guide

(substitute 8.0 by the proper release version)



2.1 Preparing driver disk



A floppy disk is required to install into a brand new (or blank) disk drive.



Several Options:



. Extract the contents of the [distribution]_sii____rhdd.tgz file on to a formatted floppy disk.

(e.g. use tar xzf [distribution]_sii____rdhh.tgz)



. If running windows: use "rawrite.exe sii____.img A:"

(get rawrite from RedHat installation disk #1 \dosutils directory)

. If running linux: "dd if=redhat_sii6512.img of=/dev/fd0"



(actual file names may vary slightly. ____ identifies a valid chipset for the driver)

for example: suse_united_sii3112r.img, redhat_sii6512.img are valid names



2.1.1 IMPORTANT NOTE FOR OEM CUSTOMERS

ADD your PCI ID to the "pcitable" file if OEM VendorId is going to be different

from SiI 0x1095 IDs. (End Users should ignore this step)





2.2 Steps for first-time installation



Before you start make sure the BIOS sees your adapter card (if applicable) and

your disk drives.



If just adding Data Drives or upgrading go to sections 2.3 or 2.4

(non-bootable SATA drives are considered Data Drives)



Step1 Boot from the RedHatLinux CD 1 or a boot diskette that you have created.

(Refer to "The Official Red Hat Linux x86 Installation Guide" see 2.1)



*RedHatLinux9.x*

Step2 At the "Welcome to Red Hat Linux ..." installation screen, a

prompt labeled "boot:" will appear at the bottom of the screen.

For installation in graphical mode:

At the prompt type "linux dd hde=noprobe hdg=noprobe" and press the enter key.

For installation in text mode:

At the prompt type "linux dd hde=noprobe hdg=noprobe" or "dd text instead of dd"

or type "linux dd hde=noprobe hdg=noprobe hdi=noprobe hdk=noprobe" (4 drives )

and then enter key.



Typically SATA 1 has hde and hdg. If your system has more than one

Controller then SATA 2 will have hdi and hdk. There is no f,h,j

because all SATA drives behave like Master Drives



You can actually have SATA 1 drives using this drivers and SATA 2

using the Open Source Driver. It is probably not recommended for

normal use.



Note: BE CAREFUL typing the line since a typo will be ignored and

the kernel will enable the Open Source Driver creating a

conflict





RedHat 9.0 contains a generic Open Source Driver that must be disabled at

installation time. Typically hda hdb are on IDE0 and hdc hdd are on IDE1. Then

the SATA disk drives start at hde. SATA disk drives are all MASTERs so their

values are typically hde, hdg, hdi, hdk, etc. This driver will behave like a

SCSI device and will remap the SATA drives to sda, sdb, etc.



Sometimes mostly if you have are using drives that have partition information

the SATA driver may get confused and report errors at Installation time. After

you have installed the driver but before you format the disk(s) you may do the

following: (formatting starts when doing disk partitioning)

. get a console window by typing CTL-ALT-F2

. mke2fs /dev/sda (say 'y' to prompt)

. fsck /dev/sda

type '2'

type 'w'

This will repartition the disk drives



The Open Source Code understand the Metadata and sometimes it gets

confused





*RedHatLinux8.x*

Step2 At the "Welcome to Red Hat Linux ..." installation screen, a

prompt labeled "boot:" will appear at the bottom of the screen.

For installation in graphical mode:

At the prompt type "linux dd" or "expert" and press the enter key.

For installation in text mode:

At the prompt type "linux text dd" or "expert text" and press the

enter key.





Step3 Select "Yes" at the "Do you have a driver disk ?" .



Step4 When the screens prompts for "Insert your driver disk and press OK to

continue" insert the driver diskette in the floppy drive and select

"Ok".



Step5 The installation program will automatically load the SiI driver into

kernel. Continue installing your system.

Note, all ATA/ATAPI devices connected to SiI controller will be

presented as a SCSI devices.





*RedHat 9.0*

Step6



RedHat 9.0 requires to create a BOOTABLE floppy diskette when using GRUB. You must boot

with this diskette to continue with phase two of the installation.



When ready to reboot type the following:



boot: linux hde=noprobe hdg=noprobe



A Bootable diskette is not required for LILO but it is recommended.



You still need to Add "hde=nopobre hdg=noprobe" while rebooting the second

time.



Continue install.



Typically you should be able to get a console shell by typing CTL-ALT-F2

or by just login into your favorite window manager.



Become root and execute the following script that will modify the boot loaders to work properly



# sh "redhat_9.0_update_boot_loaders.sh"



This script determines which loader and loader configuration files must be

modified / upgraded



At this point you are done with the installation.





*RedHat 8.0*

Step6



. Clean Up (recommended but not necessary)



. # 'sh cleanup-8.0' or

'sh cleanup-9.0', etc.



It can run before or after rebooting



. At this point you are done with the installation



2.3 Adding a Data Drive



If your system is already up and running then you can use execute shell scripts to modify

the kernel or add loadable modules to access the SATA drives as follows:



. Modify the loaders to disable the Open Source Driver (no script yet)

(add hde=noprobe and hdg=noprobe)



. # mount /mnt/floppy

in case of DOS formatted floppy

. # mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy



. # 'sh /mnt/floppy/load-module-2.4.18-14' (DATA DRIVES)

(or use the the proper script depending on your kernel)



. insmod sii6512. You will need to add insmod to rc.init scripts



. At this point you are done with the installation



2.4 Upgrading the Kernel



If your system is already up and running then you can use execute shell scripts to modify

the kernel or add loadable modules to access the SATA drives as follows:



. # sh /mnt/floppy/kernel-upgrade-to-2.4.20-8 is an example to create a NEW KERNEL IMAGE

/etc/lilo.conf and /boot/grub/grub.conf will be saved by the setup

script. you may back them up as you wish. Visually inspect lilo.conf and

grub.conf to make sure the result is what you want.



3.0 Special Cases:



Mixing Drives.



if you are using LABELS to define partitions, it is recommended that NO drives have duplicate

labels. Linux gets confused when partitions have the same names. (check lilo or grub

configuration files)

change from => append="root=LABEL=/" to root=/dev/hda2 for example





The way Linux finds disk drives also affect the booting sequence.



At the prompt type

"linux ide0=0x1f0,0x3f6,14 ide1=0x170,0x376,15 ide2=0 ide3=0 ide4=0

ide5=0 ide6=0 ide7=0 ide8=0 ide9=0 expert "



At the "Boot Loader Configuration" installation screen specify following

kernel parameters:

"ide0=0x1f0,0x3f6,14 ide1=0x170,0x376,15 ide2=0 ide3=0 ide4=0

ide5=0 ide6=0 ide7=0 ide8=0 ide9=0"

(this may apply only to old releases)





4.0 Modifying Boot Loaders Manually (old techniques)



If using LILO boot loader:

a) Modify /etc/lilo.conf file similar to the example



EXAMPLE:



(before modification)

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.7-10

label=linux

read-only

root=/dev/hda1



(after modification)

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.7-10

label=Red Hat Linux SiIxxx

read-only

root=/dev/sda1

initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.7-10.siixxx



b) Update new configuration of Lilo by the next command:

/sbin/lilo



If using GRUB boot loader:

Modify /boot/grub/grub.conf file similar to the example



EXAMPLE:



(before modification)

title Red Hat Linux (2.4.7-10)

root (hd0,1)

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.7-10 ro root=/dev/hda2



(after modification)

title Red Hat Linux SiIxxx

root (hd0,1)

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.7-10 ro root=/dev/sda2

initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.7-10.siixxx



Step2 Flush filesystem buffers

#sync

Step3 Reboot the system

#reboot



Step4 Select in boot loader menu item "Red Hat Linux SiI680"



Step5 If the system reports about swap failure, please,

modify /etc/fstab file similar to the example:



EXAMPLE



(before modification)

/dev/hda3 swap swap defaults 0 0



(after modification)

/dev/sda3 swap swap defaults 0 0



*RedHatLinux7.3* (old techniques)



Step1 Get driver "siixxx.o" from SiIxxx Driver Disk by issuing commands :

# mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

# /mnt/floppy/load-siixxx

The shell script "load-siixxx" will load driver in the system and

will create initrd image.



Step2

If using LILO boot loader:

a) Modify /etc/lilo.conf file similar to the example



EXAMPLE:



(before modification)

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-3

label=linux

read-only

root=/dev/hda1



(after modification)

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-3

label=Red Hat Linux SiIxxx

read-only

root=/dev/sda1

initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.18-3.siixxx

append="ide0=0x1f0,0x3f6,14 ide1=0x170,0x376,15 ide2=0

ide3=0 ide4=0 ide5=0 ide6=0 ide7=0 ide8=0 ide9=0"



b) Update new configuration of Lilo by the next command:

/sbin/lilo



If using GRUB boot loader:

Modify /boot/grub/grub.conf file similar to the example



EXAMPLE:



(before modification)

title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-3)

root (hd0,1)

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-3 ro root=/dev/hda2



(after modification)

title Red Hat Linux SiIxxx

root (hd0,1)

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-3 ro root=/dev/sda2 ide0=0x1f0,0x3f6,14 ide1=0x170,0x376,15

ide2=0 ide3=0 ide4=0 ide5=0 ide6=0 ide7=0 ide8=0 ide9=0

initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.18-3.siixxx



Step3 Flush filesystem buffers

#sync



Step4 Reboot the system

#reboot

So… am stupid to think that the RH 9.0 driver may work on RHE AS? Is there away around this? Reading the above it looks like info for just a Linux install.. not a dual boot system for windows/linux.

If anybody can talk or help me thru this… Please do, I’d even call you on the Telephone to get assistance regardless of the cost!

Cheers for listening,

Kenny.

Hi all!

Ok, here is my situation: I'm still unable to install Mandrake 10.1 to my Seagate 120gb SATA drive. The installation process freezes when detecting my ide devices. I've successfully installed Mandrake to my PATA drive when "compatibly mode" is enabled in BIOS (P4P800 motherboard). And after the install process has been successfully finished, I have tried to change "enhanced mode" setting on. And now begins the problems. First notice was that the system is loading very slowly. Booting to the login screen takes about 10 minutes. And the message "disabling irq 11" keeps showing. Even the mouse behaves strangely (mooving slowly etc). I took a look to the Mandrake control center and it shows a device "ich5 sata" or something (as it should show). But the system is not working properly.
Have you any idea how to get these SATA devices work? I didn't find the answer when I read through all these posts.
I saw that there was some persons who has managed to get these SATA Seagates to work with ICH5R.

Thanks!

Dear Meamursu,

I don't know much about your P4P800 (apart from what I read at the asus site), nor do I work with Mandrake.

My recommendation: Check with e.g. knoppix (lastest) if your device is recognized there. If so the following way is probably a good idea.
Download the lastest stable kernel (2.6.10 as of this writing) and consult your doc on how to prepare a new kernel for your distro (it is easy with Debian, but I don't know about Mandrake). Most important is a copy of your .config found as /boot/config-yourkernel
. In the config file (via make xconfig eg.) select:
Device Drivers>SCSI device Support->SCSI low level drivers->Serial ATA (SATA) support->Intel PIIX/ICH SATA support.
Do mark as yes everything on the way to the Intel SATA. Furthermore I recommend to include all filesystems that you are using as yes (not modules) this safes the hazle with initrd. Remove drivers that you definitvely don't need - the y may only interfere.
I am pretty confident that this will solve many of your problems.
Good luck
Stephan

Melamursu:

I just noticed all these new posts on here.. anyway I happen to have a P4P800 (Deluxe) myself...!
I have everything working here.. it sounds like you are having issues with your driver/controller for sata. As the post above this indicates you simply need to recompile your kernel. Look on Mandrake sites for help on that.. (I know how to do it manually ie: slackware/LFS/etc but not necessarily in Mandrake) It has been over a year since I even have run Mandrake and simply do not remember if you can compile and setup lilo or grub within the desktop. But you definitely can do it.. that isn't the question. So recompile and do what he suggests above to get your SATA ICH5R driver working in the kernel and then post your results here!

Good luck as always-

bc

Thanks guys!

I'm happy to hear that it's even possible to get this chip work with Linux. I'll compile a new kernel when I get back to my place.
And what about the speeds of the SATA Seagates? Are they still running with poor performance?

Hey,

I don't know the speed of Segate drives, but I would like to tell you to NOT expect the 150 MB/s. I get around 50 with my Maxtors 250 GB SATA drives.

Good luck!

melamursu:

Most drives you should get (no raid and speed at 7200rpm) around 50-70 MB/sec. This is normal...

try:

hdparm -t -T /dev/sdX

( X=drive letter )