I have a particularly interesting situation. I'm attempting to install MythDora (MythTV All-In-One Distribution) on a XFX GeForce Motherboard. I'd like to use a SATA DVDRW and HD, but the installation with those items is less than helpful. I temporarily substituted a IDE DVDRW, and used a SATA to IDE converter board to just get the installation completed. Now I have the install on the hard drive I want. But, I've come across two issues.

1. MythDora uses LVM to create the partitions. What files do I have to change, or programs do I have to run to move the reference of the hard drive from the ide port (which I'm assuming is hda0) to the onboard sata (again, assuming sda0)? Normal slices, fstab, I can handle, but this LVM stuff throws me for a loop.

2. Even with the IDE converter still in place, and booted to the hard drive as it was installed, if I connect a SATA DVDRW, it hangs as it tries to load the kernel.

I'm assuming there is a driver issue, and once I resolve the driver issue, not only would the SATA DVDRW work, but I would then attempt to change the appropriate files and move the hard over to strictly SATA. All the research I've done have come up pretty blank. I was hoping someone here could shed some light on the subject.

Read about kernel options. Basically you append them to the kernel line in grub.conf/menu.lst for example

I'm no professional - but I believe the ability to use sata is purely in the kernel. If the kernel is fairly current (? > 2.x ?) it should not be a problem. Someone here should be able to give some more (better) information.

That is correct. Instructions would be great, I've been unable to find documentation on the internet myself. Preferrably a driver disk that I could load preinstallation would also be great. That way I could put the installation directly on the SATA HD through the SATA connection. That's an option that always open, if anyone knows of such a device.

Well, I have good news and bad news. Bad news is, I can't get it to work, and I'm entirely spent. Good news is, although I would have to configure MythTV completely manually (which is not bad), Fedora Core 9 will install perfectly when both DVD and HD are connected with a SATA cable. Unfortunately, now I've run into other issues, particularly with OnBoard video. But I guess this solves my main problem, now it's just a case of tinkering.

This may be too late but Ifound answer at this link.
I can't provide link because my first post.

I changed, in bios setup, advanced/onboard devices/sata from sata to ahci(not sure this has to be done). Once the MD5 install disk started, I hit tab and entered pci=nomsi. I can now install with my sata dvd drive.

enjoy

Here is the link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance...CI_under_Linux

I recently went to install the latest Ubuntu 64bit Server and was bitten by this one.

Your offered a long list of possible drivers none of which tie up with xfx or gforce or nvidia etc. etc.

I am using an xfx gforce 8200 AMD socket 940 DDR2 Motherboard.

What nobody bothered to tell me was this AHCI setting is in the Bios there's some loose mention around that AHCI is the answer

Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is a technical standard defined by Intel that specifies the operation of Serial ATA (SATA) host bus adapters in a non-implementation-specific manner. (Thats from wikipedia btw so beware it could be wrong).

So the Bios is American Megatrends International (AMI) v02.61 1985-2006

Under Advanced choose Onboard devices

In that section look for Sata Mode Select.

The options are Sata Mode, Raid Mode and AHCI Mode.

The next line says.

Change the AHCI DID for LINUX.

This has choices of Enabled or Disabled.

So I set the first to AHCI and enabled the second this appears to have worked.

There's nothing in the manual that came with this Motherboard or the supposedly updated PDF version on line for either of these two entries but let's hope this helps someone else down the line.