Suse 9.2 install trouble on asus a7n8x and sii3112a
 

Hi!

First of all, I hava an asus a7n8x deluxe motherboard which I know is not the most linux-friendly one. When I try to install suse pro 9.2 and just choosing install, it stops just after "searching for info file" when searching for hardware. The same thing happens when I try 'no acpi' and 'safe settings'. If I choose manual install, I come past this stage but when yast2 is probing for hardware and tries to load sata_sil, nothing happens from there. I have a seagate disk (ST380013AS), which I know means trouble connected to the sil3112a controller, but the same things happen when I unplug it.
My system now consist of a suse 9.1 personal wich runs quite fine on a partition on the seagate disk and I also have windows xp installed on another hard disk connected to the sata controller. That disk is a western digital 120gb, so I guess that should be working fine.
So, my question is: If I buy myself a regular ATA disk and install suse to that without installing the sata_sil module, will grub be able to load windows xp? Grub is now on the second partition on the seagate disk.

thanks
Martin

Have you tried changing the SATA options in bios? You may want to try changing those before purchasing a new hard drive. I've seen the bios option change solve similar problems.

Unfortunately I can not change the SATA options in bios. I have read that changing this to PATA would solve this problem, but it is not possible on the a7n8x deluxe (rev.2.0). I have had some trouble with the seagate disk anyway (gets very warm) so I think I will just drop the SATA controller and not connect any disks to it...

Well I don't know any other solutions, but you might want to look here. www.suseforums.com Its a great forum.

Ok, thank you for the tip. I will see what I can find before I rebuild my system completly. If I find a solution I will post it here as well.

When I disabled the onboard sata controller by jumper setting on board the motherboard, every problem that I had so far just vanished. Hardware detection and then onto yast went just fine. Too bad I have two sata disks that cannot cooparate with suse 9.2.

I have just found this thread! Interesting but same "no go" goes for SuSE 9.3 as well. For the sake of testing I just tried SuSE 9.3 on my Desktop. Have the same board too "a7n8x deluxe". After loading module sata_sil my box hangs until reset.
Even more interesting that SAME goes for Slackware 10.2 when booted with kernel image "test26.s" It just HANGS on the same damn spot!! Funny that I have never actually upgraded kernel to 2.6. Always kept for defaulf 2.4. When Slack 10.2 came out I decided to try out 2.6 and here is the outcome. Damnation!!!!! :p :D