[conspire] Problem accessing SATA controller

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Mark S Bilk (mark at cosmicpenguin.com):

> 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.

Then, the kernel definitely didn't see the hard drive.  dmesg is where
you would always see the drive ID'd.

> Semi-non-sequitur:
> So why do you have to reboot after partitioning a disk before
> you put filesystem(s) on it?

Usually no.  

in olden days, all of the partitioning tools for Linux would warn, upon
saving and exiting, that sector zero was locked or something like that,
and that a reboot was necessary before the kernel would see the changed
partition table.  Sometimes, they still warn that; usually, they turn
out to be excessively pessimistic.

If you see signs that your changes don't seem to have "taken", though,
then you do indeed have to reboot.