Installation Problems with SATA Drive

[Ow Mun Heng]

On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 08:33, Hong Liu wrote:
> I tried to install Red Hat Linux 9.1 and FC3 to Dell Dimension 8400
> which I purchased recently.  Both systems show the same error message
> “No Device Found”.  The PC has Intel Pentium 4 processor 550 (3.4 GHz)
> w/HT technology and 1MB cache, Intel 925XExpress Chipset, 1 GB DDR2
> SDRAM at 533 MHz, 250 GB Serial ATA hard drive (WDC WD 2500JD-75HBB0,
> 7200 RPM.

That's the 1st time I've seen a WD drive in a DELL box.

> Anyone can tell me if  this system is supported by FC3.  If no, what
> are the major issues?  SATA hard drive or the Chipset? If yes, what
> are the solutions?

I believe it _is_ supported, however, it may be due to the kernel. SATA
support is only best supported when using the updated 2.6.9 FC3 kernel.
(but it should boot/install fine for you to yum update)


> By the way, I used the windows XP home edition to partition the hard
> drive into 3 partitions: 170 GB as NTFS which is installed as Windows
> XP Home Edition; 30 GB as  FAT32 and 30 GB as FAT32.  I also tried to
> boot the Linux in Rescue mode from the CD and used FDISK to look at
> the partitions.  Unfortunately, the FDISK does not recognize the hard
> drive.

Again, since it's SATA, that may be where your problem is.
Can you DL a minimal version of gentoo 2004.3 (~50MB ISO) and boot from
there? It uses 2.6.9 kernel.

-- 
Ow Mun Heng
Gentoo/Linux on DELL D600 1.4Ghz 
98% Microsoft(tm) Free!! 
Neuromancer 12:35:22 up 3:33, 6 users, 
load average: 0.22, 0.32, 0.34