I've done a bit of research on my particular problem, but since I'm still a nube I need a few specifics

My system uses a 29160N for my two CDROM Drives(Plextor 32X12X10 and Pioneer DVD RAM) and my boot drive (NTFS), all other drives in the machine are IDE, including the drive I want to Linux to.

When I try and install, I boot fine from the CDROM drives, the problem occurs when the install attempts to load the module for the SCSI adapter, I receive a message shortly thereafter 'no CDROM device found'. I quickly figured that the SCSI adapter didn't load. This seems to be a problem for Mandrake and U160 adapters, I've found out that loading the AIC7XXX Family module will allow the adapter to become useable(since Linux will only be using the CDROM drives through the adapter, speed's not going to be a problem)

I back up and select the 7XXX Family module but then I'm asked to enter parameters for the module... There's my problem. What do I enter?

A while back I did try Mandrake 8, which had no problems with the 2940UW I had at the time

Adaptec has modules for Red Hat and SuSe but I've found Mandrake seems easier for Windows users to adapt to, and I haven't used my Unix skills in 5 yrs(on the few Xenix and Unix boxes that I had access to)

Just a thought ...

Do I enter in SCSI0?

hmmm still no answers

Oh well...

Here's the details on the internals
Asus P4P800S
3.1G Intel Processor
2X512M OCZ 3200 RAM
Radeon 9700Pro
Adaptec 29160N SCSI Host adaptor
Plextor 32X12X10X SCSI
Pioneer DR100 DVD-RAM SCSI
Seagate 9G SCSI Hard Drive (NTFS C: Drive)
Maxtor 30G Primary IDE Drive 0
Assorted other drives IDE
SoundBlaster Audigy ZS

I've seen references to entering Expert mode, which I've done and lose the use of my keyboard, USB Module not loaded?

As I mentioned above

I can boot off the CDROM and enter the install process, I'm presented with beginning instructions F1 for Help F2 for expert mode (lose the keyboard)
If I just hit enter for normal install it loads USB modules and SCSI module (indicating aic7890) then I get the No CDROM Device found error,
I can go back and load a module from floppy (debating on downloading the
RedHat driver from Adaptec's website, but since I don't have a linux formatted floppy to begin with...)
I can select a module from a list "AIC7XXX Family" or "old AIC7XXX" and I'm presented with enter parameters
Looking through messages with similar issues there was mention of
noapic linux noapic

can I enter those parameters?