i have a small form factor , biostar ideq computer , with a sata hd .... every time i try to install a linux distro it cannot find my hd, i have searched for drivers and found some via sata drivers put them onto cd but redhat and suse both cannot find the hd during setup.... in redhat it gets to disk druid and says it cannot find it! suse will not let me load the floppy boot disks ..... im not sure what im talking about but ive been trying to get linux working for about 3 months now ... can anyone help me please?

Both SuSe and Fedora core 4 (based on the old redhat) supports SATA. If you are trying to install an older version of redhat, it is possible that it doesen't support sata as default.
In that case you will need to boot using a special parameter instead of just pressing enter to fire up the default kernel.
Try typing this at boot for redhat:

This will launch your installer with SATA support. You can also press the F2 button for a list of avaiable kernels.

If you still want to use your redhat version there are workarounds available here:

http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html

Hope this helps you out