My Kubuntu system is working out great as a digital photo editing workstation. Originally it had a 80gig SATA drive, but I decided to get a bigger drive and swap the old one into my main workstation-for-paying-work. Well now, Linux support for SATA is fine n dandy, you don’t have to install drivers like you do for poor antique Windowses. But in the computing world rule #1 is “there are always glitches.” My workstation-for-paying-work wouldn’t recognize the 80-gig SATA drive. It took awhile to get there, but the answer turned out to be a simple one…

The 80-gig drive is a Western Digital 800JD. This is an SATA2 (300 MB/s) drive. Of course SATA2 is backwards-compatible with SATA1 (150 MB/s). But the ASRock K7VT4A-Pro mobo supports only SATA1, and did not automagically recognize the drive. The drive needs to be jumpered for SATA1. I don’t know if this applies to all SATA drives, or if it’s a motherboard quirk. Anyway the answer was in the FAQ section on the ASRock website, which I should have looked at first instead of last. It would have saved an hour of fruitless troubleshooting.

There are four sets of jumpers. You want to short pins 5 and 6. When you’re looking at the back of the drive with the standard 4-pin power connector on the right, and the SATA connectors on the left, this is the second pair from the left. You’ll find nice diagrams at http://www.westerndigital.com/en/library/eide/2579-001037.pdf

Kubuntu box specs for those who like specs:
AMD Sempron-64 3400, I gig RAM, ECS NForce3-a mobo, nice roomy Antec case with front-panel USB, dual-layer 8.5-gig DVD writer, 250 gig SATA drive, 20-gig PATA drive, Thermaltake 430-watt PS, 19″ ViewSonic LCD.

Kubuntu-64 version 5.10. With all the usual image editing and organizing goodies: Gimp, Krita, Konqueror, XSane, Album, Image Magick.