Mandriva Spring 2008.1 will not install for newbie
 

I built a pc from some spare parts to make it my Linux Learning Center. I wanted to make the leap from PATA to SATA, but the mainboard does not support SATA, so I added a SATA adapter and connected a SATA 160 gb harddrive and a SATA DVD/ROM to it. I know this is going about things the hard way seeing as how I've never installed linux before, but I had to buy a harddrive and DVD/ROM for this pc and did not want something obsolete from the moment I built it.

Upon post, the BIOS display for the SATA adapter appears and correctly identifies the harddrive and DVD/ROM. After that, the POST display for the mainboard appears, along with the option to enter the BIOS. With the Mandriva Spring 2008.1 ISO image cd loaded in the DVD/ROM, a Mandriva splash screen appears after the POST display.

What follows is a sequence of messages that indicate that communication with the harddrive is "timing out". I wrote all of these messages down, but the whole thing is rather lengthy and I would prefer not to type them if I can get out of it. Bottom line is that I cannot get Mandriva to install on the harddrive. I was hoping there might be a simple solution, or someone who has encountered this before. I would be most grateful for any suggestions, other than "Get a PATA drive, dummy!". Thanks.

First, check your cabling to the sata hard drive. Second, get the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic utilities and run them on your hard drive. All the majors have them on their websites in the support section, generally in the form of a bootable iso. You burn the iso to a cd-r as an image, boot off that and run the diagnostics from there. That's just to eliminate a hardware problem with your hard drive. By the way, is the hard drive new or used?

Also, post the make and model of your sata adapter and the chipset it uses if you know.