Hi all,
first of all: I searched forums, used google and found lots of stuff that relates to Suse 9+ and s-ata controllers etc. But nothing really helped me here.
I am sort of new to Linux, and I haven't worked with s-ata drives under any OS much.
Ok, here's the problem.
I have a ASUS P4P800 mainboard that has 1 Ultra IDE Channel/Connector (first IDE, empty), 1 standard IDE (second IDE, DVD Rom as Master on it) and 2 S-ATA (80 GB Harddisk on one).
WinXP is installed on the disk and there's a 30GB free partition left I'd like to install Suse 9.2 on.
The S-ATA controller (Intel ICH5R I take it) is set to native mode in the Bios (not compatible), but I read Suse 9.2 has the 2.6 Kernel that supports native s-ata.
When I start YaST from the DVD it checks the hardware and then tells me <sortofquote> on at least one of the disks found (dev/sda) there's a raid set up in the bios as hardware raid that appearently is a software raid. And software RAIDS are not supported (Check portal.suse.com for infos on migrating). Should you proceed to install Suse on this disk, all the data on the RAID system will be lost</sortofquote>
and I definately do not want that.
Now, first of all, with one disk, how can I have a RAID set up??
Second, if it just means the one s-ata disk, I thought native s-ata is supported in Suse 9.2+ anyway?
If I change the setting for the s-ata controller to compatible mode in the bios, it can't find the DVD Rom anymore... making it hard to boot from the DVD, somehow. WinXP boots fine from the harddisk, though.
I suspect there is something happening with the IDE Channels that when s-ata is changed to compatible mode, it uses the Secondary Masters ressources. Although I think that would be extremly stupid.
But then maybe I'm extremely stupid.
If I proceed with the installation anyway, YaST doesn't seem to recognise the Windows system all all and suggests deleting the existing partitions. When I chose manual partitioning and tell Yast not to delete the Win partitions, but use the last partition for install, it complains it wants to delete the 8mb unpartitioned space that windows leaves when partitioning a drive.
this makes me sceptical about whether WinXP will boot afterwards...
I don't feel like proceeding any further at this point.
Anybody that has a good tip on what the problem is and how to solve it?
I will eventually kick Win off the machine, but at the moment it is not an option, as I still need to work with some win-only software (argh, ESRI...).
Will a second disk be a solution?
I could try convince my boss to sponsor one...