I am having a LOT of trouble installing ANY linux distro...

every distro i try (have tried: debian, suse, mandrake, slackware)
fails to even initialize the installation... it hangs for a LONG time, then when i switch to the terminal windows for error messages i get (something to this extent, i wrote it down because i cant cut and paste)

hda: irq timeout: status=0x50 { DriveReady SeekComplete }

and the same for my other drive (hdb)

i tried booting with ide=nodma, i tried enabling and disabling the SMART option in the bios...

i also tried switching my ide cable, with the same errors

but windows xp works fine????

i dont understand, and i need help for windows is the doom of mine existance

If I remember right I think ide now has to be passed per controller, so ide0=nodma, and try the command:

dmesg | more

To make certain it took the DMA argument.

Also, what kind of cabling? are these ata66/100/133 drives hooked up using an old 40-pin IDE cable instead of an 80? If so the kernel is parm'ing them up above what the cable is rated for. (windows is cowardly in this regard).

Is the IDE controller something weird, what kind of machine are we talking here?

Cheers,

Finegan

these are old 6gig hard drives that i ran linux on fine for a long time

bump?

Try including noapic.

how do i do that?