[Gllug] Gentoo & Booting from SATA disk

[Andrew Halliwell]

And verily, didst Nick Warrington announce to the hordes:
> I tried to add ide_disk to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel.2.6.9 and doing a
> modules-update. I didn't notice anything appended to /etc/modules.conf and
> it still didn't boot.
> 
> Is this the right module at all. I keep reading about libata. I initially
> thought that this might be the module to use but although I can insert the
> module it doesn't give me /dev/hde.

It won't.
libata makes sata disks look like scsi.
So you should be getting /dev/sda1.

Also. (and this is important)...
How is the module loaded at boot time? If you have no initrd file, then
there is no way for the kernel to mount the partition on the disk in order
to load the kernel module needed to see the disk with the partition on it,
to mount it.

It sounds to me like the standard "Eeek, i can't boot!" "That's because you
need the module in an initial ram disk at boot time" problem.

> Perhaps I should try and compile in the ide_disk module. I did look. The
> only options that seemed plausable was the CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDISK option.
> Compiling it in didn't seem to make a difference.

ide-disk (and all other relevant ide things for your motherboard) should
ideally be compiled into the kernel really, as should sata if you know
you're going to be using sata, and any other modules needed at boot time.
The initrd method is valid, but it's mainly used in distributions when they
don't know exactly what hardware and filesystem configurations people will
use. Gentoo is obviously a bit different from other distros because it's a
roll your own type thing.

If libata is available (2.6 kernel? or patched 2.4?) then libata is the way
to go with it. Remember though. SATA+libata=scsi disk as far as the kernel's
concerned.

> Not sure where to go from here?
> Also can anyone shed any light on the different SATA modules and what
> they're all for?

Type lspci. This lists everything on your pci bus, and should give you a
hint as to the SATA/IDE chipset. If it shows intel for example, you won't be
needing promise, sis, nvidia or via.
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