How do I add a third party SATA driver to KNOPPIX at boot

**rolflist** · 01-01-2005, 10:28 PM

Hello

My Dell 8400 (SATA disk WD 160GB) boots OK with Knoppix 3.7 (version 2.78-knoppix) with
1. in BIOS > drives > SATA operation changed to "combination" mode
2. knoppix 2.6 kernel with cheatcode acpi=off, thus boot: knoppix26 acpi=off

SATA disk recognized with 2 partitions (sda1 is a Dell Utility vfat partition for diagnosis, sda2 is Windows XP ntfs).
The drives can be mounted as root: mount /dev/sda1 & mount /dev/sda2, and appear accessible and
the content of /etc/fstab appears OK. I did not check writing to the SATA disk yet (XP backups beforehand advised !)

'

' This gives confidence !

A further suggestion, mentioned also at http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15998:
try to boot: knoppix26 noapic acpi=on

Remarks:
1. System enters a single processor mode (knoppix 2.4 without acpi=off displays the dual processor mode).
2. With BIOS > drive > SATA as factory default (raid autodetect/ahci), knoppix26 stalls after "init:version
2.78-knoppix".
3. As explained at Dell's linux site ( http://linux.dell.com/storage.shtml ) the ata_piix module will not support
the AHCI interface yet. Installed windows XP will not boot when the drive is in 'combination'
(=SATA/PATA) mode. Thus a reinstall of windows would be necessary, as outlined here
http://www.sjmk.net/articles/2004/11...imension-8400/
Probably it is better to avoid a combined SATA/PATA mode, when completely reinstalling, as outlined by
Dell and choose "Raid Autodetect/ATA".
4. Other reported installations are (backup's of Windows beforehand advised !):
Fedora FC2 (kernel 2.6.7): http://ieng9.ucsd.edu/~wmar/fedora.html
Suse 9.2: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...04/11/4/251145
5. Recent ata_piix modules (2.6.7 and above) do mention AHCI: http://kerneltrap.org/node/3432,
with a fix mentioned in the latest (2.6.10-rc3) http://lwn.net/Articles/110962 .
6. But in a recent post the ACHI issue seems not solved for the Dell 8400 (Fedora FC3, with
kernel-2.6.9-1.681): http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=269836
7. ACPI delivers information about the battery, AC adapter, temperature, fan, and system events like “close lid” or
“battery low”. So with 'acpi=off' this will not work (mainly important for notebooks), see
http://www.novell.com/documentation/...l/ch09s03.html
8. ACPI should be supported in debian, so maybe it is a 'non-standard' BIOS on the Dell 8400. See the discussion at
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportfor...d=335342#M4142
I remember: an installed Dell 8300 also only worked with 'noapic' under Suse 8.