I have tried to instal Ubuntu 6.10 and Fedora Core 6 on my Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo pc, which has a 250 GB SATA disc. I have Windows XP Home in one partition (110 GB) and the rest of the disk is allocated to an empty partition for Linux. Both instals stop when they can't find/see any hard disc. What do I need to do the get them to recognise the presence of the disc? I don't want to instal both, just whichever one I can get to load.

Looks like both distro don't support the sata controller. One thing to try is in the bios the sata channel maybe configured as pata mode or legacy IDE. If it does try those options and save the bios. Try installing again. If all goes well then changing back to sata mode may work on reboot after fully installed. The basic install kernel in Fedora is not a full kernel with all needed drivers. Another option to see what you do have is boot up with a live cd like knoppix and type the command ' /sbin/lspci -v '. It should list the sata interface even if knoppix does not have a module. If you get to the knoppix idea post output for the sata controler. You may also check the HCL secton here at the top and to the right. Lots of hardware listed there.

Brian

Another option is to pass a kernel parameter at the start of the installations, when you press Fx to see available options instead of hitting enter, you will get a command prompt. Try typing:
Hit enter and you will end up using a generic ide module/driver to access the drive for the installation.

Thanks - that certainly worked for the Fedora distro.

I ended up installing an IDE drive and both distros loaded onto that. I'll tackle the SATA problem when I have a bit more experience.