SATA Drive not recognized as "SOURCE" during setup
 

I have just one computer, it has a PX-716SA SATA CD/DVD Rom drive. I do not have a floppy drive (that works..). I was able to partition everything, but when I get into setup, the drive is not recognized when I look for a source. I tried test26.s sata.i bare.i none of which worked. I have the nv controller (wish I brought the MOBO book with me so I could look it up).

I have read numerous posts about recompiling the kernel. I also saw something about APIATA or something like that, but I have no idea what that is refering to (went through my bios and didn't see anything about it). I am stuck, I do not know how to recompile the kernel in the middle of the install.

Basically, I would like 3 things:

1.) Can it be done.

2.) How?

3.) I would also like to know what everything I would have to do is... I.E. What do the parameters I need to use do? (as opposed to "just type this").

I played around with mount, but I'm about as green as green can be in reguards to Linux.

Do you select cdrom for auto when asked? Try passing its location name manually. Primary master - /dev/sda, primary slave - /dev/sdb, secondary master - /dev/sdc, secondary slave - /dev/sdd and so on. If your cdrom is recognized after boot and you can access cdrom selection screen, then you should be able to get correct its location.

Im still at work, however, I tried setting it earlier and it told me it couldn't access disk (tried several sdx's sda is linux main partition, sdb is linux swap (other partitions on here also, but no other linux partitions), sdc couldnt access). I will try again when I get home.

Since I haven't gotten all that far anyway, how many partitions do you suggest? I have (in trying to find info for my problem) read about people making a partition for / and for /tmp and for /username.

I'm pretty green, but that reminds me of ftp... is there a reason people don't want / and /temp on the same partition? Something about backing up before an update...

I have 30gb (approx) set aside for non-swap space. I also have another drive with 5.8gb set aside for swap. My original intention was to have xp 32bit, linux 32bit and linux 64bit with the two 36gb raptors running both versions of linux and each drive having the other's swap...

Someone told me to go with Slackware as it is (in his experience) the easiest to setup and work with. I do plan to try some of the others after my next upgrade (when I have more drives).

How do you guys recommend setting up my partitions?

At least one for / and one for /home and /swap
Leave one ~5 gig empty partition to test other distro
All the other "more complicated" partition schemes
will depend on the use of your PC, home or server,
and your security requirements.
You will get one scheme from each person you ask about it

I suppose I should clear that up a tiny bit...

This is what I do for windows and why.

I have two partitions.

1 for main os, and one for "program files" and other storage.(slipstreamed)

This way if I need to format, I extract the registry entries for my games and programs I can't locate the CD for (I move often due to work :mad: ). Then I format, update for a few hours... then drop in the registry entries and call it good. (actually, I usually ghost the main partition at this point so I can skip some of those steps next time).

*note*
sometimes DLL's need to be located, but usually the programs rebuild them, or tell you where they are. (this is actually why I started ghosting)

This seems to keep windows pretty clean and I would like to have some of the same failsafes for Linux. I have no threat of someone accessing my computer locally. This computer and my laptop are the only current computers connected and any other computers will be behind another router (I go through two due to having a wireless router before I bought my VOIP phone which requires it's own router...)

I was hoping to something akin to that with Linux, but I understand there are some possible issues with Linux crashing that require a format. Or failed updates that dictate more then 2 partitions. (I would love to put "documents and settings" on the second partiton...)

>>possible issues with Linux crashing that require a format
Never heard of that

The minimum you want is / (OS partition) (it will then have directory /usr and /tmp /var for example in it)
and /home and /swap as 2 partitions
and one empty partition
Possibly /opt as 1 partition (? not sure of the name) for added software if you were to do it that way. But linux is not like Zindows, it will put the library where it needs to (I think?).
You cannot think like for Zindows

Maybe look into checkinstall, (or a rpm based distro)

For more about which partition is which
http://www.apeldoorn.hccnet.nl/howto/rute.pdf

Sorry I am not very clear today

Minimally there should exist / (root) partition. As i understand, swap is not a must but it is strictly recommended unless you have lots and lots of RAM. Everything else is your choice and depends on what you want your computer to be.

How do I determine if my cdrom is recognized? cd /cdrom puts me in /var/log/mount, but there is nothing there.

Under manuel cdrom entry, I tried throwing everything I thought stood a snowball's chance in hell at working, to no avail. A friend came over and tried a few things, but unfortunately, he just finished work and said he couldnt think anymore.

More info I noticed while playing with it, it is identified as fourth IDE Master (even though it is SATA). However, during the cdrom selection screen, that option also fails.

I've fiddled with it about 6 hours, but I am not even sure how to tell if I figured it out with my near random button pressing.

Also, that manual you linked me to Emmanuel_uk, much appreciated, didn't tell me what I was asking, but it did provide me with linux command line syntax/standard options (I.E. --help, which is more important then partition questions tbh).

try as root lshw
that should list all your hardware, incl cdrom

otherwise adapt this command
cat /proc/ide/ide1/hdc/model

I noticed I could load it off FAT, so I copied the contents of the drives into a FAT drive (all of them in L: and then a copy of each in L:\DiskX where x is what disk they are...). I then rebooted from xp into the install. Used test26.s kernel. Went and set swap, set main partition. Then it asked about the NTFS and FAT. I used this to determine where my FAT drive was located (/dev/sdc2). I went into source and told it to go to /dev/sdc2 it asked where the files were located, I told it /. Then I tried with /slackware, then I tried with /disk1, then /disk1/, then /disk1/slackware, then /disk1/slackware/, then finally (and I knew this wouldn't work, but I was tired/pissed..) "L:".

All failed

I quit and tried to mount /dev/sdc2 to /temp using

mount -o rw -t vfat /dev/sdc2 /temp
wrong fs, blah blah blah or blah error (I'm not at home...)

I went into fstab using a template visible on my laptop I added something like...

/dev/sdc2 /temp vfat noauto,user,umask=0 0 0

setup did not recognize /temp or /dev/sdc2 still, so...

I tried to mount it using

mount /dev/sdc2
error

mount /temp
error

mount -o rw -t vfat /dev/sdc2 /temp
error

mount /dev/sdc2 /temp
error

mount L: (meh...I was annoyed, agian, knew it wouldn't work, but...meh)
If I recall this sent me to the mount --help....

Some of those errors were "/dev/sdc2 or /temp in use or busy or too many mounted devices" or something very close to that... Not sure which ones because, again, I am not at home, and that was over 12 hours ago...

What am I doing wrong?

@Emmanuel_uk shouldn't my SATA CD-Rom be /dev/sdd ? Also, the best command I have come up with on the manual is "ls." Followed by cat and vi.

Also, I have (approx) 12 partitions on my machine, (most NTFS, 2 FAT, 2 Linux, 1 Linux Swap) How many mounts can Linux support simultaniously?

There is no temp directory in Slackware. You needed to create it.

See http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=171318
about your drive

It suggests modprobe sg
also see if it is in /proc/scsi/scsi

yes it could be /dev/sdd or sdc

I must say I have never used a sata cdrom so I am a bit in the dark

Alternatively
(no flame please, but I would suggest you try another distro as well
to see if that cd can be seen straight away, say Mandriva, or suse,
or whatever, even a live Knoppix cd, then come back to slack once
you found out what was needed to make the cd work)

...I did... I suppose I made myself sound a little newer then I had intended. I grew up on commandline. The first words I could spell were list and load.

load "heli" ,8,1

I have a pretty good bit of dos experience, however, I was unfamiliar with any of the specific commands and syntax for linux (I still don't know them all, however, I do know where to find them and find out what they do..).

I did, however, make the /temp directory before trying to [insert appropriate verbage for mounting a drive here] in/to/at/under the /temp directory.

I wanted to go slack because a friend of mine has slack and is pretty good with it (so he says). However, he does not have a SATA CD-Rom drive either... (He did, however, tell me that slack 10.2 wouldn't cause me any problems with it...)

Alright, anyone know a distro that works with the px-716sa without a hitch? Then I can steal the config file. With that, Pinky, I will take over the world. MUAHAHAHAHAHA...

No way to mount the fat32 sata drive?

Go with mandriva (am biased), but then try anything else that takes your fancy,
Suse, Ubuntu, PClinuxOS, vector etc.
They all have their pro and cons

The advantage of mandriva is a lot of automated things, good hardware detection,
centralised control system tools (aka MCC mandriva control centre),
and evolution: you can still learn a lot and "do it by hand", still
it is very newbie friendly.

Anybody you ask will say differently.
Take the plunge try it, then if not happy try another
Let us know how it goes
My biased choice wrt to hardware would be Mandy, then Kubuntu, then suse