Hi, I have two hdd, one 160gb ide and one 120 gb sata seagate hdd.I have vista ultimate 64bit installed on the ide hdd which recognises both the hdd.Whenever I am using Mandriva 2007 or SUSE 10.2, or Ubuntu feisty-fawn, it does not recognise my ide hdd.So, I have no other option left but to utilise entire sata hdd which I don't like. I want to use only 12gb of either ide or sata hdd and want to dual boot with vista. Please help me.

A lot of the newer kernels now list ide drives as scsii drives. On Fc5 my ide drive was hda but on F7 it is sda. MAYBE that is what you are seeing?

To "see" the Hard Drive data for YOUR devices inside the Linux Box <without or with M$Windows>, try the BIOS. If all, in YOUR system, both Hard Drives show the data. Great! If not, try manually adding the data to the BIOS. After correcting, please check all the BIOS settings and try to get them as close to YOUR configuration as possible. Line up the software and the hardware with the configuration that will run most often and smoothly. Any exotic or wild setting for maximum potential will be risky and possibly impair the system to run as a complete unit. Save the tweaking for after the correct productivity of YOUR requirements and choices. Remember: "Save and Exit". After the reboot YOU should be able to dual boot if in BOTH Distro's, the boot records are correct and in their appropriate sectors. Me; I trust the MBR every time, and all is well. Suggestion, install Vista in the front of the Hard Drive, because of the formatting and system chosen. Linux runs best, and will run in any partition of suitable size. IF: changing the partition table; "BACK UP ALL DATA!", good luck to YOU.