>> > I am getting this error within first few seconds of launching the
>> > Slackware 9.1 installation on a Dell Dimension 4600. Does anyone have
>> > any clues as to what is going on?
>> >
>> > hda: ide device driver attached
>> >
>> > Thank you
>>
>> That's not an error, it's an informational message. It's telling you it's
>> using an ide device driver for your primary master ide device. Unless you
>> don't have a primary master ide drive, it's perfectly normal.
>
> Well, the problem is, my installation never goes past that message.
> It just hangs up there. Now that you've explained stuff a bit, I
> realize that my hard drive is SATA capable and there is no primary
> master ide drive in the system. Apparently this is causing the
> hangup. I wonder if there is no support for SATA capable disks in
> bare.i kernel that was included in Slack 9.1? Do you know how could I
> get around this? Thank you.

IIRC there isn't any support for SATA in bare.i, or any other slack kernel
for that matter, as it's something that's only really getting supported in
2.6. All I can suggest is compiling your own (2.6) kernel and making a
bootdisk out of it, or trying another distro's kernel.