hi, i can´t install SUSE on my Vaio, Suse Dont recognize my HD, i install another HD in the Laptop and the same problem, i install Kubuntu without problems also Fedora Core 2 and 4, but Mandrake Freeze in the hardare detection, Suse Dont recognize any HD in the laptop.

i try with HD blank, partitioning in Fedora and try to install suse but it dont recognize nothing...


how can i install SUSE on my laptop?

Try this out:

http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2005/04/akulk_sis93.html

Link must work!

Many thanks for your Help

Im having the same problem on my pcg-grt170. I have windows XP instaleld and it works/boots fine. Both Suse 9.3 and Mandrake fail to detect my harddrive. The Bios recognizes it just fine.
The link above does not work anymore. PLease help

yes, it works.. in the boot options in the install type


insmod=ide-generic

work fine in SUSE..

OK I will try that. Sorry for a dumb question but I am a newbee (at Linux) and want to play with it a little. Where do you put the above command in ? DO you boot from the disk and pick "installation" or "installation with safe mode" or what?.
Another thing thats not related to linux but is a concern on this laptop is that I am using a disk backup utility called Acornis. However, it also fails to see my hardrive. Is it a problem with the laptop itself? Windows is the only OS that doesnt seems to have a problem so far. Both XP and 98 boot disks see it just fine. Its really bizarre.
Thanks for the reply

in the installation menu select install down have a BOOT in this write insmod=ide-generic...the problem is not the laptop itself, its the SIS chipstet all PC with sis chipset have the same problem

Great, I got that to work. Now Im having a different problem. after the install starts, it complains about not being able to find a lot of the files it needs. I have Suse on a DVD burned from and ISO image. I can hit ignore and continue but the files it cant find just continue ( literally hundreds of files) until I abort the install.
I also have Mandrake on a DVD and Im having problems there too. It gives meerrors like
Hdc: lost interrupt
Ide-cd: cmd 0x5a timed out
needs cdrom
needs ide-cd

Its just my luck that every time I try to install Linux, i run into problems. I then give up and wait a few months and try again. Im getting really turned off by it :-( I guess Bill Gates will rule for now.

OK an update, I finally got it installed. The errors I was getting were because of the DVD-R disk i was using. I burnt it on a different drive (a dvd-rw) and it worked just fine. Thanks for the tip Raton.

congratulations seri007, a question, do you update your SUSE?, it because when i update mine, i cant connect anymore to network or internet. i dont know what update have this...

Raton, for right now I cant get my wireless card to work. However, the builtin ethernet port works. I have not tried to update yet.
Just as a side note, I also installed Mandrake 10.1 on this laptop and everthing works like a charm (with the exception of the hot keys on the keyboard like volume etc). I did however had to do a text noapci command at startup for it to recognize the HD. Hope this helps someone.
cheers!!

how can you install mandrake? in my laptop mandrake dvd 2005 crash after a few minutes...

Burn it on a different brand dvd-r or dvd-rw disk (try a slower burn speed). Ive noticed that the DVD drive in this laptop cant read certain dvd-r disks. Also make sure that you do not burn a multisession disk and finalize it.

to install linux on most laptops i recommend turning of acpi and network plugs
to do this do type in: linux noapic pci=noacpi

once your system is installed you can enable acpi again in lilo.conf (if u use lilo) and remove pci=noacpi and linux noapci...remember to start lilo again..