Sata hard drives are not supported in RedHat 9. For a detailed discussion, see the following link;
 
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/archive/31/2003/12/2/123028

My problem is... can't afford another PATA drive atleast for another few months. I have to get along with my SATA drive. Well, for me I hope I have to lay down the hope of installing Red Hat 9. Well, is there any Linux Distrubution which support SATA... please let me know... I'll try to go for the one that works..
 
regards,
Chingkhei

It looks like kernel 2.6.x is sata capable. You might want to try out Mandrake Community (Mandrake 10) or wait for Fedora Core 2 to become available.
 
The other possibility is a cd based distro for now, to see if it works.
 
Finally, take a look at distrowatch to see if a distro to your liking is available with the most recent 2.6.x kernel.
 
http://www.distrowatch.com/

Well... i'll try out Mandrake 10 for now and wait fr the new releases... I have few question rearding my installation... I am listing the procedure i am likely to follow.. please let me know if this will work...
 
my XP is in the Primary Partition... and have an extended partition with 3 logical drives all NTFS. I have around 7 GB free diskspace... I am planning to install Linux there. I'll set the [/], [/swap],[/boot] in that 7GB space... ( A question here is should I add them to the extended or create another primary partition for [/boot]? ) Then about GRUB/LILO I am thinking of installing to the [/boot] and not MBR... ( the question here is will i be able to run Linux using multiple boot thirdparty software available. and which are the compatible boot software in market? )
 
regards,
Chingkhei

I just wrote one of my best posts and lost it in a segfault!
 
Oh well, here we go again.
 
You will get a variety of opinions on this from linux users.
 
Mandrake has a great partition tool that you can use to auto allocate your remaining free disk space. In your case, if Windows is assigned to the first partition of the hard drive and the other NTFS partitons are just data partitions, you are in good shape.
 
During the Mandrake install, you can choose to allow Mandrake to auto allocate your partitions, or you can manually set them.
 
However, auto allocating with Mandrake's partitioning tool has some drawbacks. It will try to allocate root to the first linux partition that it finds. In your case, this is not an issue.
 
You can choose to auto allocate free space only, which is fine.
 
There is also an expert install mode that allows you more flexability to add or exclude packages and some features, as well as really manually partition the drive as you wish. When you get to the partitioning window during the install you will see the options.
 
In terms of a bootloader...lwhen you choose lilo or grub as the bootloader, this is your bootloader. Mandrake will see the windows install and add a boot option for it in the lilo or grub boot menu.
 
The contraversial part comes when choosing where to put the bootloader.
 
I have always placed the bootloader in the MBR. Of course, then this becomes your permanent bootloader from this point on. Any OS or linux distro adeed after this must be aded to this bootloader's options, or, you allow the new distro's bootloader to take over.
 
The trick here is if the new distro's bootloader will see all your other linux installs. Some yes, some no.
 
You can also install the bootloader (lilo or grub) to a floppy. This way you can see how it goes and add it to the MBR when you are certain that you want to keep the distro.
 
Installing to a floppy first leaves the MBR intact with your windows bootloader, when you boot from the hard drive only.
 
I know that Dapper Dan uses grub attached to a /boot partition. He (or others) can comment on this.
 
Most third party bootloaders are generally not linux friendly. If you have one of these installed, check their documentation. They generally cause all kinds of issues with linux installs and can trash the system. But there is really no need for them, since lilo or grub becomes your windows and linux bootloader.
 
However, remember, once you do install lilo or grub to the MBR, any addtitional OS or linux distro added afterwards will need to be added to grub or lilo.

thanks Danleff.... . Your information seems to be all I need to get me start off with Mandrake 10. About installing LILO/GRUB in a floppy, can u give me a hint how it's done.. sorry for being too ignorant.. haven't opened my eyes on linux yet... am a complete newbie. I seem to have another question... Say, by default linux create 3 partitions [/boot], [swap], and [/] and as far as I guess all the programs are installed in [/]. But lets say, I want to have another data partition say [/home] where I'll be saving all my works... now the problem is how to work this out.. coz' linux will by default create the folder [home] inside [/]. And even if I create another partition [/home] hoe do I get Linux use my partition as its [home] and not the default one.. sorry for being so.. idiot. your help will clear many doubt's in my mind about the working of linux.
 
regards,
chingkhei...

This is a good idea, creating a stand alone home directory. If for some reason you hose your install later on, you have the home directory intact to recover data or apps. that you have downloaded.
 
From a previous post;
 

Quote:This is one quirk that Mandrake's disk partitioning utility has. When you install Mandrake, at the boot prompt when the install cd loads, type in expert, then hit the enter key. 
This begins the expert install. Then when you reach the menu for disk partitioning, choose custom partitioning. This prevents Mandrake from automatically assigning root to a previously populated ext2 or ext3...partition. You can then assign your previously formatted partitions to root, home or whatever.
 
By choosing expert install, you can assign the partiiton sizes and designations as you wish.