Ubuntu can't see new SATA drive

[William Chapman]

On 10/1/06, Craig Hagerman <craighagerman at gmail.com> wrote:
> I finally got it working. I discovered two things in my research.
> First, there is a newer form of SATA which transfers at 3 GB/s and an
> older form that does 1.5 GB/s (I think those numbers are right but
> don't quote me). I read that some controlers won't do the higher
> transfer rate so there are jumpers on the back of some SATA drives to
> force them into 1.5 mode. The second thing I discovered is that my new
> SATA drive is SATA 2 with this higher transfer rate. (Hadn't picked up
> on that before.) So maybe that is why I had the problem.
>
> To recap - the new drive works in an external USB case, but not
> attached directly to the motherboard. But two other SATA drives (same
> manufacturer) work perfectly attached directly.
>
> My motherboard is an Asus AV8 Delux. It has two SATA controllers. I
> have always used the upper ones (via?). I tried attaching the new
> drive to the lower (promise?) controler before using the jumpers to
> change the speed. Lo and behold, it worked! I was surprised (but
> happy).
>
> So, I *think* what was going on here is that one control can't handle
> SATA2 but the other can.
>
> Thanks for the advice Gilles.
>
> Craig
>
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>
Craig,

There is a considerable difference between the motherboard-based sata
controllers, and the "cheapie" sata controller chipsets usually found
in external drives.  Early kernels would not support most of the
"cheapie" chipsets.  (But these did work with Windows.)  However, the
more recent kernels now work well with the cheapie sata chipsets.
These external drives could have usb or sata interfaces, but always
used sata internally (to the drive).

So, you could experience a difference between using a drive connected
directly to the motherboard, and the same drive used in an external
enclosure.

I think the 2.6.15-25-383/686 kernel was when some of these problems
were fixed for external drives.

Bill