UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

No unix/linux systems have worked on my computer

Problem: I have SATA hard drive and every time i get the error which says 'YOU HAVE NO HARD DRIVE'

wondering which i tried?
http://www.linuxiso.org/

so if you have dealt with this before, please reply

if you think you know then it might be helpfull but i went through thousands of GURUs and it baffles them all

thanks for your help

Then you have certainly searched Google with this kind of criteria: Linux SATA and looked through all of the links that I found.

not only that, but i also asked around from professors to gurus, to unixheads to unixhead-professor-gurus

Serial ATA (SATA) chipsets - Linux support status

http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html



Problem: Serial ATA (also known as S-ATA or SATA) chipsets are rapidly replacing legacy "parallel ATA" (PATA, i.e., regular ATA/133) chipsets - but many Linux installers' kernels don't yet support many Serial ATA chipsets. If yours isn't supported, you have an installation obstacle. SUSE Linux 9.3 and later's installation kernel, Fedora Core 3 and later's, CentOS 4.1 and later's, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and later, Gentoo Linux 2004.3 and later's, Knoppix 3.7 and later's, Debian 3.1/sarge and later's (especially when started with the "bf2.6 boot flavour" boot image), Slackware 10.2 w/test26.s boot option, Xandros Desktop OS 3.0 and later's, Ubuntu (or Kubuntu) Linux 5.04 "hoary hedgehog" and later's, Vector Linux 5.1 and later's, Libranet 3.0 and later's, MEPIS Linux 3.3.1 and later's, Kanotix 2005-03 and later's, Linspire 5.0 and later's, PCLinux OS preview .81 and later's, ArkLinux's, and Mandriva Linux 2005 and later's all have a good selection of the required drivers. Scott Kveton's Debian netinst image does, likewise - see Links/Resources.

Note: There is no such thing as a distribution or its installer (generically) "having SATA support" (or not). Please send anyone speaking in such terms to this page. (Some SATA chipsets have been supported since practically forever, as their programming interfaces are unchanged from PATA predecessors. Others are brand-new and require new drivers from scratch.)




There are three workaround options:

1. Switch the motherboard BIOS back to "legacy ATA mode" (parallel ATA = PATA). Complete a Linux installation. Fetch or build a kernel with support for your chipset. Switch the BIOS setting back. (Potential catch: It's claimed that Dell Optiplex GX270 and Dell Precision Workstation 360 desktop units, using Intel ICH5 SATA-I chipsets, don't support switching to legacy ATA mode. This might be true of some others.)

2. Rebuild your installer using kernel 2.4.27 or later, which includes libata, desirable since it adds many new chipsets and gives a (potential, subject to physical read limits, etc.) ~10M/s speed boost to some others compared to the quite slow 2.4.x drivers/ide set.

3. Temporarily add a regular PATA drive to your system. Install Linux onto that. Fetch or build a kernel with support for your chipset. Migrate your system to the SATA drives.




now if i was working with linux or unix before maybe i'd understand some of that nonesence, but fact is, i never used it so i cant make my own kernel, nor do i know what a PATA is, and that legacy does not work


any OTHER bright ideas?

GURUs are way overrated these days. Let's use reason instead.

Web article's suggested workarounds: Based on your comment:
Option 1 is out.

Based on your own capability assessment:
Option 2 and 3 are out.

Here's my bright idea

I'll just touch on option 3 for a moment. PATA; since you don't know what a PATA is, I'll tell you. PATA is simply the predecessor to your new fangled SATA drive. It's simply a legacy ATA drive. The suggestion is to install Linux on a run-of-the-mill ATA drive so that the installer doesn't complain, and once installed and running, find a Kernel that supports your SATA's chipset (2.24.27) and rebuild the one that you installed (there is ample documentation that will walk you through this and it's safe enough; you can allways revert back to the older Kernel and boot your system).

Finally, create a disk image from the PATA and overlay the SATA. The logical outcome: your SATA drive boots Linux and makes your days glad and, what's more, you can show the thousands of baffled GURUs that you are more clever than they are.

If can't get your arms around the mucking with the Kernal or if you just don't want to, keep the PATA drive in place until SATA drives are more widely supported. Once they are, you've double your disk capacity, you'll undoubtedly be experienced enough at this stage that you won't be satisfied with simply overlaying the SATA and you'll realize that SATA's performance can be utilized for, say an Oracle database .

The bottom line is this: there doesn't appear to be any silver bullet for your requirement. If the Kernel change is too daunting and, if you must have Linux installed, you are simply going to have to replace the drive with a something less cutting edge.

Good luck.

sounds interesting, now if you would be too kind, please put all that as a detailed STEP-BY-STEP so stupid me can actually follow it

that way, if it works it'll be greatly appreciated

so lets start with

"create a disk image from the PATA and overlay the SATA"

i dont even know what this means, let alone where to start with this

The simplest way I can describe it is that you take a byte for byte picture of the disk and copy it to another drive. There are commercial utilities that do this very well; Norton Ghost is my personal favorite for its other features. There are methods that can be done in Linux as well but Norton Ghost is a great utility to keep around.