I have one more 9gig partition on my SATA hdd and I want to install one more distro.

I have Mandrakelinux 10.1 already burned to DVD, but when I tried to install it, it for some reason will not pick up the SATA controller. My board, MSI K8N Neo Platinum, has SATA controllers and stuff built in, I don't need drivers or a driver disc to install operating systems on the drive, it's just cool like that or something.
Is there an easy way to do the install without a floppy drive? (I DO have a USB thumbdrive...)

I kind of want to see what Slackware is like too though...

So in summary, I have/want to install Mandrake, Slackware, ______, in that order, but I need to be able to install it on 9gigs worth of SATA.

Suggestions?

Oh yeah, one more thing, I already have Fedora and Windows XP, right now Fedora boots unless I interrupt it. I like it that way, so it would be really nice if whatever I install doesn't mess that up. The only thing I think would be better is if it were like when you have 2 versions of XP installed, it doesn't boot anything by default, just has you select at boot.

ALSO for linux in general should i be able to somehow instead of use 4cds just use one dvd
i doubt it sounds possible and all but ive run out of cds

You've actually got several questoins here, so lets look at htem one at a time...


There is pacty support for sata in general, so I wouldn't expect your "I don't need drivers or a driver disc to install operating systems on the drive" statement to hold true. If mandrake isn't detecting your hard disk, I'd suggest you look for a howto on creating that driver disk yourself. Just becuase it has worked doesn't mean it will work; fedora core tends to be close to the bleeding edge, YRMV.
[QUOTE]I kind of want to see what Slackware is like too though...

do answer your DVD question: MOst distro distribute software on DVD, though some odn't have an installation bigger than one CD, so they really don't have the capability to create the dvd isos, probably aa CD iso will write to a dvd anyhow.

well for instance im getting slackware now and its 4cds... id rather not have to bum four more cds.
i guess ill try, if it doesnt work, oh well... kind of what i did for mandrake anyway.

There's a guide on how to make a single Slackware Install DVD from the 4 CD .iso files. The guide is for Slackware 10, but I imagine it will work for other versions of Slack and quite possibly other distros as well.

http://boncey.org/2004_12_23_make_yo...0_bootable_dvd

Mike