[conspire] Problem accessing SATA controller

[Mark S Bilk]

On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 06:25:52PM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
>Quoting Mark S Bilk (mark at cosmicpenguin.com):
>...
>> But cfdisk could not access /dev/sda or /dev/sdb, and Yast's 
>> Hardware Information function could not find the drive either.
>
>It's possible that looking at the end of /var/log/dmesg, around that
>time, could be enlightening.  

Nothing in dmesg except libata reporting that it has loaded.
Nothing when I try to access /dev/sda and /dev/sdb, and nothing
about SATA when Yast's hardware scan runs.

>If you see nothing about a hard drive
>there, then either it's a hardware problem (unlikely), or something like
>your suspicion about a weird drive incompatibility might apply -- in
>which case it'd be handy to borrow a second SATA drive and cross-check.

I have a Seagate SATA 300 and 400 GB (can't resist those Fry's 
sales!) and will try them now.

>> Do disk controller modules have to be loaded during bootup to be
>> effective, even if they are not needed for the boot drive?
>
>No, they don't.

Thanks, Rick, that's a very important piece of info.  

Semi-non-sequitur:
So why do you have to reboot after partitioning a disk before
you put filesystem(s) on it?  And is there any way around that?

  Mark