[BBLISA] Why do Linux rescue CDs make SATA disks look like SCSI ?

[mcallister at mit.edu]

This has annoyed me for some time.  I manage a farm of PCs with SATA disks.
When I boot RHEL4 in rescue mode, or Knoppix, the disks appear as SCSI
devices (sdX instead of hdX).  This complicates working with boot loader
issues and make the use of SMART tools impossible.

These systems are on an isolated network and are still running RH7.3.
Today I tried the RH7.3 CD to see what it would do and was pleasantly
surprised to see my hdX devices.

Can anyone enlighten me as to why the newer distros do this SCSI emulation ?
Is there some way to force them to use the ide-disk driver instead ?

----
Brian McAllister                                   Senior Software Engineer
mcallister at mit.edu                      Bates Research & Engineering Center
(617) 253-9537                                                Middleton, MA