Tokes 0 Posted July 25, 2004 Hello all May I first thank all involved in this thread http://www.linuxcompatible.org/thread27288-1.html The first one I've found all morning that makes sense without blatant contradictions, It's helped me a lot. I'm hoping to install mandrake 10 (when the ISOs finnish D/Ling) dual booted with 'doze XP. (8.2 went totally la-laa during install) Now, I've got 2 sATA HDDs. I can't find any deffinative info on if sATA drives (Western Digital Raptor 37.5GB) are in fact compatable with mandrake 10, not even from mandrake themselves. Any ideas? Al Share this post Link to post
martouf 0 Posted July 25, 2004 first off, don't burn those ISOs at the fastest speed offered by your burner. Whoa! Slow down, there. 4x or 2x burn rate is best to ensure a low error rate burn. You need the closest you can get to a bit-for-bit copy of the ISOs. secondly, SATA is close to the technologic edge. It has support from server vendors, but it's still a new kid on the block. You are brave and ambitious to attempt an install. You may very well succeed, but your success is not assured. Are you prepared for a contingency of having to create your own custom initial ram disk (initrd)? Additional contingency planning: would you be able to add an IDE controller (if not provided by the motherboard) and IDE drive for boot-up? Share this post Link to post
Tokes 0 Posted July 25, 2004 Hello martouf RE: burn speed. Glad you said that, I know about quality loss from fast burns....but wouldn't have thought about it today! I am fully prepared to get myself another HDD (ATA), will do so by the end of the week, as it looks like thats the best way of keeping what hair I have left. I have read that people have managed to get various distros running on sATA, but 'hit and miss' seems to be an gross understatement. "create your own custom initial ram disk (initrd)?" uuuummmmmmm???!!!??? Que? "Additional contingency planning: would you be able to add an IDE controller (if not provided by the motherboard)?" My MoBo is an Asus P4P800, which is supported according to mandrakes hardware database with the 2.6.3-7mdk kernel, so hopefully I'll be OK in that dept. <he says with foolish confidence> Cheers martouf Share this post Link to post
martouf 0 Posted July 27, 2004 what I mean about adding an IDE controller is if your motherboard only has SATA controllers onboard, then you'll need to add an IDE interface card to hook up your plain-jane ATA HDD. "mkinitrd" is documented in distros, and reading up on it will start to tell you how to go about making your own custom initrd. You may need a custom initrd to provide your booting kernel the SATA driver it needs to use the SATA HDDs, otherwise you must provide a HDD interface the kernel 'knows' without an extra driver (hence the possibility you may need to add a plain ATA HDD). Share this post Link to post
Tokes 0 Posted July 31, 2004 My MoBo does have IDE channels on board, so physically connecting an ATA drive is no prob'. 'doze XP couldn't see my sATA drives when first installing it until I got a 3rd party driver on first. So yea, If I were to go the sATA route I'd expect to need either a custom or 3rd party driver for the drive if not included with Mandrake (which it appears it isn't), something I'd not like to get into given my experience level with anything *nix. ATA it is then, I ordered one last night (even checked it's compatability first! lol). Fanks martouf Share this post Link to post
Pfour 0 Posted August 1, 2004 Hey Guy's, I have been using My Maxtor SATA 80gig drive with no problems. Mandrake 10 dected & installed without any trouble. P4 2.6c MSI neo2LS i865 mombo 2x512 OEM ram Maxtor SATA 80gig NEC DVD burner ATI 9800pro Share this post Link to post
Linuxrising 0 Posted August 21, 2004 OK its late summer in 2004 and I'm about to start an install with a Dell 8400 with dual SATA drives. I've been searching around on this subject and still don't know if I should do it yet. HOpefully Sata will not be a problem. Anymore news on this subject. I want to do an install on the second hard drive and boot from a third party boot manager. Share this post Link to post
martouf 0 Posted August 23, 2004 this thread was "new" only a month ago. no big changes until the major distros all incorporate more mature SATA drivers. the best advice I can give you is to try to boot from a "Live CD" based on the distro you're interested in eventually installing. using 'lspci' you can learn the technical details of your SATA controller, and then use this site or research the web for information about your controller. Share this post Link to post
