I've got a new laptop with an eSATA port and a new (unformatted) eSATA external hard drive.

Is eSATA hot plug compatible with a stock F8 kernel ?
 
$ uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.26.3-14.fc8 #1 SMP Wed Sep 3 03:40:05 EDT 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

$ /sbin/lsmod | grep sat
sata_sil24             16069  0
libata                131937  3 ata_piix,sata_sil24,ahci


The reason I ask is because I expected to be able to plug it in and do an fdisk /dev/sdc and set up a new partition.  (My laptop has 2 internal hard drives, sda and sdb, so sdc should be the external eSATA drive, right ?)

When fdisk failed, I resorted to hwbrowser.  It stalled/crashed.

I repeated the experiment after a reboot with the drive powered up, ie not hotplugged anymore, with the same results.  

What am I missing ?

Thanks