Could you be more specific on what Linux distro and version that you have? If you are speaking of RedHat 9 or SuSE 9, then these versions are older and do not have support for sata drives.
If this is the case, I suggest that you use a new version of the distro which have sata support. For example, Fedora 8 or 9 is installed on my three systems with sata with no problem.
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"I love it when a plan comes together." - Hannibal Smith