SATA vs. IDE in SUSE Linux Enterprise 10

In SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 products there are two different ATA driver stacks. The new one is called libata, where the old one is IDE. When the new stack is used, ATA devices appear as SCSI devices - disks as /dev/sdX
and optical drives as /dev/srX. The new stack brings in some advantages, but may contain some drawbacks, too. One feature, which mays it indispensable in some cases, is the support for hotplugging.

Any PATA (parallel ATA) controller which is supported by IDE will be driven by IDE. All the rest (mostly serial ATA but some PATA too) are driven by libata.

Example:
You have a CD-ROM device in a docking station for which the kernel would use the "old" IDE stack and you want to make use of hotplugging.

The easiest way to do this is by adding

hwprobe=modules.pata

to the installation prompt, which results in the new stack (libata) being used.

Note:Please don't use the above boot parameter with an installed system if you don't know what the impact of this will be. See also the 'Additional Notes' section about this.

It is also possible to exchange the used stack in an already installed system, but this involves deeper knowledge in the system internals like changing /etc/fstab and the init ram fs.