Hi!! all .. I had slackware 12.2 and it can recognize my sata hdds. Now when i gonna install skackware 13.0 it can't find any hdd. :s

Have you any idea ? My motherboard is asus a8vmx and also i want to add that BIOS can recognize the hdds ..

thanks ..

It looks like the VT8251 SATA chipset on that motherboard might not be supported by the current Linux kernel drivers.

This site may have a driver that will work for you.

http://www.geocities.com/rajahuroman/main.html

You may be able to compile the driver as a module and then load it from the standard Slackware 13 Setup disc to install Slackware. Don't forget to create an initrd to load the module or compile the driver into the kernel that you use for booting.

An existing Slackware 13 system on some computer is required to compile the driver and create the module. You will need to compile the driver with the same kernel configuration as the kernel on the Slackware Setup CD if you want to load the module with the Setup CD.

The good news is that GRUB or LILO should work fine if the BIOS recognizes the hard disk. They do disk I/O using BIOS functions. If you have trouble getting LILO to work you may need to use GRUB. I installed GRUB using a GRUB boot disc because GRUB or LILO under Linux could not determine the correct BIOS drive ID assignments.

If you need more help I will be glad to build a driver module but I have no way to test it.

The vt8251 chipset is still supported ... for the 13.0 kernel look here:
The module is sata_via.

In fact, the latest kernel I've compiled is 2.6.31 and it has it, also.

Why do you say Slackware 13.0 can not recognize your hard disk(s)? More
information detailing what you're done will help.

You should make or buy a DVD/CDs and choose the huge.s kernel at boot time.

When i type fdisk nothing appears ...that's all.

are you sure that your jack is stick to you hard disk
I had met this before
I thought that the kernel had the problem
but in fact that I forgot to plug the jack

did the main board recognize your hard disk

I do not intend to hijack this thread, just out of curiosity:

Erik_FL, how do you compile an external driver into the kernel?

Best regards,
Martin

Passing the right kernel parameter should allow the drive to be recognized.
Try appending:

Two ways that I know of are to replace an existing source file for the kernel with one that has the driver changes/additions, or patch/edit the kernel make files to include the new driver source file.

Some drivers don't provide any help for that and it's easier to just leave them as modules and use an initrd.

In this case I was thinking that the changes to support the device (if even necessary) were for an existing driver module in Linux.

I would certainly recommend exhausting the other choices such as kernel or driver options before making changes to the source files or adding third party drivers.

If the above doesn't work try going into the BIOS settings and see if you can put the HDD controller in AHCI/RAID mode.

netpumber - You might try typing "dmesg | more" and looking for something that looks like a disk drive (e.g., "/dev/sda"). It's been a while, but I think you have to provide the device to "fdisk", not just type it by itself.

GL