Just a note : i have a pci sil3112 sata card and it worked fine with my friend's hitachi 47d drive!
I flashed it with the latest firmware (4.2.76) available at
http://www.siliconimage.com/support/supportsearchresults.aspx?pid=63&cid=15&ctid=2&osid=0&Slax CD did not worked but crosswire worked fine.
Without crosswiring, drive was not detected in the sata card bios, but detected instantly with the cross wire trick.