HDD

This article describes the setup of an internal SATA or PATA (IDE) hard disk drive.

Hardware detection
To choose the right driver, first detect the used storage controller. You can use lspci for this task:

BIOS
If you have an AHCI SATA controller, check your BIOS, if AHCI is activated.

Kernel
You need to activate the following kernel options:

Configuration
You need to create partitions and install a filesystem, if not already existing.

Advanced Configuration

 * hdparm - change hard drive performance parameters
 * Power management
 * smartmontools - S.M.A.R.T. monitoring tools

Usage
You can mount the filesystems in several ways:
 * Single mount.
 * fstab - Automatic mount at boot time.
 * removable media - mount at demand.
 * AutoFS - Automatic mount at demand.

Troubleshooting
See libata wiki.

External resources

 * libata wiki