Hey guys just installed ubuntu and im having problems in that linux refuses to recognise my IDE hard drive. It mounts my root (sata) Hard drive fine but there is no mention of any IDE drives in my /dev directory as showen below

All sata drives are handled through the scsi subsystem, therefore, they all have /dev/sd prefixes (/dev/sda is your first sata drive usually). Type "cat /proc/partitions" for a listing of drives and partitions that have been detected.

Thats good to know but it doesnt really help my IDE non recognition problem.

You failed to mention your hardware configuration, and your kernel version, etc..

A lot depends on the motherboard. Most PATA ide controllers (ribbon cable) are handled by the ata_piix driver. There are a few others for 3rd party controllers. First, check to see if ata_piix is loaded.

If you have one of the new Intel 965 boards, best of luck to you. The pata controller is a stripped down version of Marvell's SATA Raid PCIe controller ductaped to the ICH8, and not currently supported in Linux (last I checked - 8/31).

If this doesn't help, please post more hardware details. The output from lspci will help.

ah ok im using a gigabyte DS3 965P so that would put me in some difficulties, looks like i may have to retreat to windws then until linux supports.......that stuff.....gruemaster said.

At least post the output from lspci if you can.

ah yes sorry about that, took the post as a death sentence, heres my output

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 29a0 (rev 02)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 29a1 (rev 02)
0000:00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2834 (rev 02)
0000:00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2835 (rev 02)
0000:00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 283a (rev 02)
0000:00:1b.0 0403: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 284b (rev 02)
0000:00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 283f (rev 02)
0000:00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2845 (rev 02)
0000:00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2847 (rev 02)
0000:00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2830 (rev 02)
0000:00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2831 (rev 02)
0000:00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2832 (rev 02)
0000:00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2836 (rev 02)
0000:00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev f2)
0000:00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2810 (rev 02)
0000:00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2820 (rev 02)
0000:00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 283e (rev 02)
0000:00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation: Unknown device 2825 (rev 02)
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 7100
0000:01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 7120
0000:03:00.0 IDE interface: Unknown device 197b:2363 (rev 02)
0000:04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8053 Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 22)

any hope?

There is hope for you yet! I did some research on your system, and found that it uses a JMicron Technologies AHCI controller. This is listed in the pci.ids table that ships with Mandriva 2007rc1. So there is potential Linux support for your system. You might try getting a newer test kernel for Ubuntu, or switching to Mandriva. Also, your audio is listed as a Realtek ALC883 codec. Could you send me the output from "lspci -s 0:1b -vn"? I'm currently working on the Intel HDA audio drivers, and will see about getting specific support for your board added to alsa.

Wow I realy wasnt expecting anyone to put this much effort, really appreciate it. Im not all that keane to switc to mandriv (ive only been running ubuntu for a week) so where would i find\download a newer test kernel?

As for the sound

0000:00:1b.0 0403: 8086:284b (rev 02)
Subsystem: 1458:a002
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 66
Memory at f8100000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [60] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
Capabilities: [70] #10 [0091]

help as always is very welcome