[CentOS] Smartctl & SATA

I've just installed my first system with a SATA drive and I've noticed that
smartctl isn't supported under libata

According to the smartmontools home page, SATA will require a patch that is
still in development.
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6983#comment-126714

"The patch is still under development and it is probably best to make sure
that the disk is idle before trying smartmontools." Isn't a glowing
endorsement, besides the system only has 1 hard drive.

Under CentOS 4.1
# rpm -qa | grep kernel
kernel-2.6.9-5.0.3.EL
kernel-utils-2.4-13.1.48


I also tried the CentOS 4.2 kernel (and kernel-utils) with similar results.
# rpm -qa | grep kernel
kernel-2.6.9-22.EL
kernel-utils-2.4-13.1.69


Thanks,
Mark