I am trying to install Slackware 10.1 from the installation CD, dual boot. When I run cfdisk it tells me that I have no permission to write then it goes on to say that the partition table is empty (which is fine because its a unpartitioned 80gb harddrive). Then I click y to start with an empty partition table. When I get into cfdisk it tells me that the amount of free space is only 658mb but if I run the Windows XP Pro installer with the same hard drive there is 76,600mb free. I also tried running the SuSe 9.1 Pro installer on this hard drive it said that a hard drive could not be found. Any help would be appreciated. I personally don't think that the hard drive is being recognized, but that doesn't explain why it says that there is 658mb free, if it isn't recognized wouldn't it say 0mb free?
My questions are:
1.) How / why does it say that I don't have permission to write to this hard drive?
2.) Why does it say there is only 658mb free when it is an unpartitioned 80gb hard drive?
3.) How would I get it to not read only 658mb free but 80gb?
It is a SATA Western Digital 80gb unpartitioned hard drive. I don't have a jumper on any of the pins.

It could be a motherboard driver problem. I know people have had some problems with SATA because of the controllers. Wish you luck.

You should boot with the sata.i kernel.
You should issue "cfdisk /dev/sda"
If these don't work, post back errors.

I am currently working on trying to get it to boot the sata.i kernel. I can't seem to get the root disks to work. Dunno why. I'll go try it again and post the errors I get.

I dunno what you mean by "I can't seem to get the root disks to work."
You just stick CD1 in the drive, boot the computer, and at the prompt
type sata.i and hit Enter. Make sure your comp will boot from the CD.

Did you check the md5sum of the iso images before burning the disks?
Always do this, and then check the CD after burning just to see if you
have directories with files in them.

ya Im getting the same problem when boot sata.i

login as root and then if I run cfdisk /dev/sda gives this error
FATAL ERROR: Cannot open disk drive
run fdisk /dev/sda unable to open disk drive
I have a RS480M2 motherboard maybe sata controller driver is not on this slackware version?

try:
cat /proc/partitions

This will give you a list of all valid drives and partitions currently on the system. (I expect the list to be empty, but at least then you can say very definitively that it's not seeing the drive.)

will try that when I get home but the thing is whe I try to boot of a gentoo CD it doesn't get past the part of auto dectecting, but I will try when i get home

Yup that display nothing

only

major minor #blocks name

looks like I got to switch distro... I liked slackware package manager but not any good if it don't support my hardware....

Look in your bios settings for something like "sata operation" and in there chose an option that lets you use your hard drive for operating systems that do not support sata hdd - i had the same problem trying to install slackware but ti works fine now.
hope this helps...