I have a new system on which I am trying to install Fedora 8.

Hardware looks like this:
ASUS P5N-E Mobo
4 GB DDR2 memory
Intel Core2 Quad Processor
Western Digital 120 Ghz drive on Primary/Master IDE port
DVD-RW drive on Secondary/Master IDE port
4 Western Digital 500 Gb drives on SATA ports 1-4

The goal: This is to be a file/web/database server. I want to install the O/S on the 120 Gb drive. The four 500 Gb drives are to be configured as a RAID5 array with a hot spare and used for data storage.

My problem:
When I boot the Fedora 8 install DVD, it only can see the four SATA drives. The IDE drive does not appear at all. I tried un-plugging the four SATA drives and then the installer could not see any drives at all. I tried installing Fedora 7 and got the same result. Fedora core 6 does see all of the drives and can be installed.

I know that the disk subsystem was completely replaced between F6 and F7 with the /dev/hda devices being replaced with /dev/sda.

Is there some install switch/boot parm I can use to get Fedora 8 to recognize my parallel ATA drive?

Thanks

Harold

Hello haroldpga,

Take a moment to look at this. It may be worth a try.

Thanks for this pointer...

After reading this, I tried installing, first with "pci=nomsi,nommconf" and then with "libata.dma=0". Both of these had the same result. Still can't see the IDE drive. Just the four SATA drives.

I have successfully installed and updated Fedora Core 6 on this machine so I know it works OK. Would it be easier to upgrade this system to F8 using yum? I can't upgrade it from the DVD for the same reason I can't install in the first place. Since the DVD system doesn't see the IDE drive, it doesn't see the existing system and so doesn't offer upgrade as an option.

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks again

Harold