I searched the forums and didn't find anything like this.

I have a DFI Ultra Infinity motherboard with onboard SATA.

The slack 10 install cd boots fine (doesn't freeze like others have been reporting)..

I login as root, and run cfdisk to setup my partitions.. and it says:

"Opened disk read-only - you have no permission to write"

I press enter. It says:

"No partition table or unknown signature on partition table
Do you wish to start with a zero table [y/N] ?"

If you choose yes, it brings me to cfdisk and shows 1 partition with a size of 682.70mb with no option to write.

If you choose no, it brings you back to the command line.

I have 2 160gb samsung drives in a raid-0 array.

Does anyone have any ideas? I was really hoping to install slackware on this machine on my day off...

Thanks in advance!


- jason

Are you using hardware RAID? Linux doesn't support hardware RAID on most SATA controllers. You may need to use software RAID instead.

Is the SATA controller enabled in the BIOS? Does the kernel you're using to boot support SATA? Normally, cfdisk gives you a choice of which disk to format. The fact that it doesn't suggests that it only sees one disk. If I had to guess, it sounds like you're trying to cfdisk your cd-rom. The size is about right and the read-only thing would be expected.

Yes, I am using hardware raid.

How would I go about switching to software raid? (sorry, I'm not too experienced when it comes to raid stuff -- and i have never set linux up with raid)

The SATA controller is enabled in the bios. This machine was running in XP pro and I am switching it over.

The kernel I am using to boot is whatever the default one is on the cd.. 2.4-25 i think.

Thanks,

Jason

To be honest, I've never used software RAID either. Check out the how-to at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-RAID-HOWTO-7.html. It looks as if you may need a non-RAID partition to boot from. I'm also not sure if software RAID would play nicely with a dual-boot, if that's what you're planning to do.

The defaut kernel probably doesn't support SATA. But I'm pretty sure Slackware provides a kernel that does. You need a SCSI-enabled kernel.

Take a look at these links about sata and slackware:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=197326
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=165724
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=187301

These should give you a heads up on sata and slack. I have a boot disk I compiled somewhere around on one of those posts. It boots a bare.i kernel with sata/scsi support. (The boot disk image file is called: sata.i) Look through those posts to find my link. It seems to still have problems with via, but then again I have had reports that it has worked also. If you have an Intel like me (ICH5, ICH5r, ICH6) you will definitely have it working. I also have RAID enabled in the kernel.


-bc

*EDIT*
This guys >POST< will tell you a good method of installing using my (or someone elses) bootdisk for a sata hard drive. It is taken from the first link above. (Just noticed it when reading through them!!! )


Oh and here is the post linking to my 'briefcase' (just a download directory) with the image files in it... Make sure your read through these threads first before you go installing anything, though!! :
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...632#post980632

Note:

I have updated my sata.i bootdisk. It is now patched against the 2.4.26 kernel to match up with Slackware 10.0. It can be found here:

SATA boot disk folder (SATA.I)

I also have a new ISO burned that will do an install of Slack 10.0 on a Serial ATA Hard drive. It runs just like the one you get from one of the mirrors except I added my kernel (sata.i) as the default boot kernel. (Just hit ENTER when at the 'boot:' prompt...)

If someone is willing to host this ISO let me know as I don't have the bandwidth or the room right now. (Even if someone has a box that could seed it as a .torrent would be great..) Of course an FTP site would be the best.

-bc

If you want to send me email please feel free.

Awesome, I'll have to try that tonight.

Damn you for making me install a floppy drive j/k

I can only upload at about 35-40k/sec but I'd be happy to help seed a slack 10 sata torrent if need be.

Thanks,

Jason

I need more then one person and someone with some reasonable speed, but thanks anyway. If it comes to the point of me having to start seeding I will give you a holler. I get about the same speed as you, so between us thats about 70 or so. Hmm, just a few more.. Trouble is with torrents (as you probably know) is that if you turn off your computer or stop seeding for whatever reason, it goes to the rest to make up for your dead seed... and right now I don't even have one other person besides me or you for backup. I figure about 5-10 ppl should be a reasonable amount to keep it going 24 hours at a somewhat reasonable speed.. I should be able to keep my system (at least one of them) up nearly 24 hours.. more like 18.. so I dunno.. we will see...d...?




-bc

Dissolved Soul-

I forgot to respond to the very first question you had at the top of this thread:

If you are getting a read error it is because your drive is being found as HD (As in it is seeing just the CDROM (READ ONLY) and cant write to it.. obviously... You need to simply do this:

cfdisk /dev/sda

or sdb or whatever your disk is... You can scroll backward to see by using the SHIFT-PGUP-PGDOWN keys in combonation. (This will let you see what disks are being found without having to try and watch as it scrolls by (Which is usually way to fast-at least on my system)
On my boot disk and also the ISO I made an explicit note of this - you can see my README file by hitting [F3] on the boot disk and [F4] on the CDROM (iso)....

Hope that helps.

-bc

Okay here is a link to the torrent:

(Same place the sata.i image is that is.. )

My folder with the torrent for the ISO

Ok.
Download the .torrent and then use it to connect to me (or others.. ) there are currently 3 leechers and just me seeding... So if you d/load this iso please please PLEASE stay on and upload (when it is done d/loading) at least 100MB . This would help us tremendously to get this iso out there and well seeded...

Thanks to everyone I am not able to thank personally for helping me out. This will help new users of slackware out quite a bit hopefully as more and more ppl are buying new computers with SATA drives installed!


Sincerely,

Brady Shea

(bc)

PS:
If you are not familar with what this is, it is the Slackware v10 CD-1 disk in ISO format. Use your favorite cd burner to burn it. (Use the option which 'burns image'. This CD should allow an install to any SATA hard drive as the original CD will not normally install to one of these drives. If you are a newbie and not familar with how to install slackware, I would recommend this CD if and only if you have (1) a sata hard drive, and (2) you are not familiar with how to use a boot disk. Speaking of boot disks, I have a boot disk at the link above, also. (sata.i) This is a much smaller download and would be much kinder to bandwidth. Anyway any questions address to me!

I’ve been trying to get my SATA Raid up and running all week with no success. I downloaded and tried your sata.i boot disk and it recognizes my two 80 gig hard drives. Problem is for some reason they are separate and not raid0 stripe mode. I’m using two Western Digital 80 GB SATA drives and a promise FastTrak S150 TX2plus PCI. On boot it shows that it’s set up as raid0 in stripe mode. When I run the boot disk I get this:

...
ICH5: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:1f.1
PCI: Enabling device 00:1f.1
PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 00:1f.1
PCI: Sharing IRQ 5 with 00:1d.2
ICH5: chipset revision 2
ICH5: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
...
SCSI subsystem driver Revisision: 1.00
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 02:03.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 10 with 00:1D.1
ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xF880D200 ctl 0xF880D238 bmdma 0x0 irq 10
ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xF880D280 ctl 0xF880D2B8 bmdma 0x0 irq 10
ata1: dev 0 ATA, max UDMA/133, 156301488 sectors
ata1: dev 0 configured for UDMA/133
ata2: dev 0 ATA, max UDMA/133, 156301488 sectors
ata2: dev 0 configured for UDMA/133
scsi0 : sata_promise
scsi1 : sata_promise
Vendor: ATA Model: WDC WD800JD-00HK Rev: 1.02
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05
Vendor: ATA Model: WDC WD800JD-00HK Rev: 1.02
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05
Attached scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi disk sdb at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
scsi device sda: 156301488 512-byte hdwr sectors (80026 MB)
sda: unknown partition table
scsi device sdb: 156301488 512-byte hdwr sectors (80026 MB)
sdb: unknown partition table
md: linear personality registered as nr 1
md: raid0 personality registered as nr 2
md: raid1 personality registered as nr 3
md: raid5 personality registered as nr 4
raid5: measuring checksumming speed
8regs : 3036.800 MB/sec
32regs : 1973.600 MB/sec
pIII_sse : 3408.000 MB/sec
pII_mmx : 3088.000 MB/sec
p5_mmx : 3021.200 MB/sec
raid5: using function: pIII_sse (3408.000 MB/sec)
md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
LVM version 1.0.8(17/11/2003)
...


When I cfdisk it thinks the two drives are separate. Any help would be appreciated.

I posted some stuff on RAID on my web page:

4elements.4mg.com

You may try reading up on it. I am the first to tell you I don't know much about RAID probably simply because I don't run it myself. But as I mentioned, I have some new links on there referring to a patch for 2.4.x and how to use 2.6.x RAID.. I dunno.. guess check those out.

bc