Arch Linux

Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

My HDD is not what I thought it is

It turns out that my hard drive is not a PATA drive as I thought, but in fact a SATA drive.

So... How did this thing function using PATA drivers? Let alone work at all (though badly!) with legacy IDE drivers? And, seeing as the kernels of distros like Slackware and Draco Linux have failed to properly recognize my SATA device - how do I keep a full kernel from trying to run my SATA controller with IDE drivers?

iBertus

Member

From: Greenville, NC

Registered: 2004-11-04

Posts: 2,228

Re: My HDD is not what I thought it is

what hardware are you using? i'm not really sure if I understand you.

Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

Re: My HDD is not what I thought it is

00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)

I checked the hard drive, and it is definitely SATA.  However, if I use a kernel that has legacy IDE drivers compiled in, the kernel tries to use the IDE drivers instead of the libATA ones, as if I had a PATA controller. Using the IDE drivers with the SATA controller works, but the performance is miserable; so I'm wondering how - for distributions other than Arch which have IDE drivers compiled into the kernel - to prevent the IDE drivers from being used, and use the libATA drivers instead.

Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

Re: My HDD is not what I thought it is

Update: apparently this is a hardware issue... It looks like the retards at Acer set the BIOS to use legacy IDE emulation for SATA drives, and gave me no way whatsoever to change that. I may have to flash the BIOS. Fuck.

Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

Re: My HDD is not what I thought it is

Grr. Latest version of the BIOS still doesn't have an option for SATA mode. What the fuck, Acer!

smakked

Member

From: Gold Coast , Australia

Registered: 2008-08-14

Posts: 420

Re: My HDD is not what I thought it is

Unlucky thats acer for you, call them and ask if they have a beta bios available you can try.

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