I can’t seem to get any Linux distribution to install on my machine, and I have tired Redhat 9, Fedora C2, SUSE 10, and MDK 10. Let me first explain my setup.

ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe w/ 2800xp CPU
1GB of RAM
2 Hitachi 60GB SATA drives in Raid 0
1 WD 40GB PATA on primary IDE controller
ATI Radeon 9600XT

I have Win XP installed on one partition on the SATA raid array. I want to install Linux on some un-partitioned space on the same array. I could live with just installing Linux on the IDE HD but if I do that I need it to dual boot with XP on the Raid array.

Now the problem comes at just about the same place with each distro. It happens when the installer either does a hardware probe or checks for previous installations (RH9, FC2). Now I can get RH9 and FC2 to install if I use boot: linux hde=noprobe hdg=noprobe at install time. But after I install it, I get a hang on the very first reboot (something to do with disabling IRQ 11). I know the problem surrounds the SATA controller so I go and find drivers for them even though I thought FC2 supported SATA. Now I can only find drivers for RH9 or older, and I can find drivers for older distros of SUSE. Now I set off to install the drivers as per the readme that comes with the drivers. I dust off my RH9 cds and off we go. At initial install screen I type “linux dd hde=noprobe hdg=noprobe” When I put in the driver disk and follow the instructions it complains that it can’t find any drivers for my hardware on the disk (or something to that effect, I can’t remember the exact wording). Linux then allows me to specify a driver from a list. I find the driver that I need in the list and select it. Then I got some “file not found” errors, but Linux keeps on chugging. When I get to the partitioning stage I can’t find my raid array.

I have done a fair bit of googleing on the topic and have found that I am not the only person to have this problem, but none of the things I have found seem to work.

Can anyone help a linux newbie get linux installed in his SATA raid array??

Thanks