Re: Supporting ACPI drive hotswap

 >Do you know why the ahci driver won't load?

Undoubtedly the chip is being used in "combined mode",
to support a PATA ATAPI device on the second channel.

For that matter, the primary HD is probably actually PATA,
perhaps with a SATA bridge on the notebook M/B.

Very very common arrangement these days -- practically all
Sonoma Centrino chipset notebooks are set up like this.

Cheers