smartmonitor-tools not working with sata drives

[Harm Behrens <hbehrens@fuchscom-gmbh.de>]

I have problems to start smartmonitor-tools:

> smartctl -i -d ata /dev/sda -T permissive
>
> smartctl version 5.32 Copyright (C) 2002-4 Bruce Allen
> Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
>
> Smartctl: Device Read Identity Failed (not an ATA/ATAPI device)
>
> === START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
> Device Model:     [No Information Found]
> Serial Number:    [No Information Found]
> Firmware Version: [No Information Found]
> Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
> ATA Version is:   1
> ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
> Local Time is:    Wed Aug  9 11:43:58 2006 CEST
> SMART is only available in ATA Version 3 Revision 3 or greater.
> We will try to proceed in spite of this.
> SMART support is: Ambiguous - ATA IDENTIFY DEVICE words 82-83 don't show if
> SMART supported. A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue,
> add one or more '-T permissive' options.

the hardware setup:

- mobo: Asus A8N-SLI
- 2 sata harddrives: 300 GB Samsung 300 GB
- kernel: 2.6.8-12-amd64-k8

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Harm