weirdest boot problem ever!!!!!!!
 

hi all
i have winxp installed on my 80gb SATA.
i installed redhat 9 on my 20gb PATA by NOT connecting
SATA hdd to the cpu for some reasons.i installed grub on mbr.later i came to know that redhat 9 doesnt support sata so i cudnt get my linux to dual boot winxp.

i got fedora 4 recently .so to install it, i formatted my PATA totally by booting using dos and fdisk.i also deleted all the partitions.i think deleting all partitions will erase all records of linux,no?

now!
i burn isolinux image of fedora on a cdrom as i am using isos to install it. on rebooting , i pressed enter to log in to graphical mode.
the booting started and then suddenly i started getting these kind of messages:

SIS_IDE : probe of 0000:00:02.5 detection with error

...things now move very fast i cant see....

VFS:cannot open root "<NULL>" or unknown boot (8,3).
please append a correct"root=" boot option
kernel panic not syncing :VFS unable to mount root fs
and loads to rubbish...

then the screen wud get stuck and i wud have to reboot


i hav tried several times ( even detached my sata to do it and next time pata and next time with both attached(phew..) )but in vain.

help plz.....


update : as prescribed in sum forums i put garbage vaalue and then press linux mediacheck.AND fedora starts installation procedure starts...

BUT its not detecting any of my harddisks!!!!!! and hence i cant continue.. help

First of all, don't create duplicate threads. You could have asked this on the first thread. So, do that next time.

Formatting your drive will remove all linux files.

I'd think you could have booted WinXP with Red Hat even if Red Hat doesn't support SATA, though I'm just quessing.

The kernel panic thing is caused by, as it says, the kernel isn't able to find the (/) partition.
This can be caused by wrong configuration in "/etc/fstab" file. In there if you have specified that root partition is something like "/dev/sda2" and kernel doesn't support sata, it will use "/dev/hda2" instead. Now, the kernel uses "hda" and the file says "sda" so it will give the above error message.

In your case it is probably caused by your chipset. When the installer starts it will usually give some boot options. Check those out if they would aid you. You could try shutting ACPI off ( acpi=off or something). I haven't used Fedora that much so I don't know what kind of options it gives or even does them solve your issue but I'd say the are a good starting point.