I tried installing several Linux distributions, but witch ever I tried did always failed to install a bootloader (Tried both Grub and Lilo, lilo didn't install completely grub always got stuck on the loading phase nr. 1.5)

The Linux distributions I tried my luck at installing,

Ubuntu, (Failed at Grub)
Mandriva, (Failed at the complete installation, prolly there was a problem with the disc)
Fedora Core 6 (zod), (Grub)
openSUSE 10.2 (Tried both Grub / Lilo, and even trieing to install the bootloader to a floppy drive, couldn't even write it in)

Tried both the i386(Ubuntu) architectures and the AMD64(All the other) ones.


PC specs,

Processor: AMD sempron 64, 1.8 gHz 3000+,
Video: Ati radeon 9600 series(AGP) ,
RAM: 2gb DDR,
HDD: 2x samsung HD160JJ SCSI
Motherboard: K8T800PRO-ALF

I'm a complete Linux "newbie" at the current moment, I'm yet to work with it in any different environment than a Ubuntu live CD, so before suggesting any operation. A small in detail explanation would be ideal.

Need more info on this ...

Installing windows I require to specify a sata/raid driver from a floppy disk for the installer to recognize/see my HDD's, but the Linux distributions seem to recognize and write everything apart from the bootloader without it. If thats the problem could you please tell me how to command Linux to look for those drivers?

I can't really think of more that I could say about it, could you specify what precise type of information do you require?

Stick with one distro until you sort this out. If Ubuntu will not install, then I doubt if anything will.

Are you running the 2 drives in a RAID configuration?

What options did you select for installing the bootloader and what error messages did you get?

When you try to boot, where exactly does it fail?---e.g. do you get a menu?

Boot from the install CD, type ctrl-alt-F1 to get a terminal, and do "
fdisk -l" Post the result here.

Try this;
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=224351
what happens?

My friend that tried doing that, didn't change anything. The terminal gave the instalation was succesfull reply, but when trying to reboot the system it still gets stuck on the same spot.

I think we need to eliminate some variables...

If you in fact have RAID, I would disable it and try installing on just one drive.

Seems that I misunderstood the meaning of RAID, after checking it up, it seems that I don't have it set up.

On another note,

I tried installing Linux in these fashions: Windows sda / Linux sdb, Linux sda / Linux sdb, Linux sda / free space sdb.

Don't really know of anymore pieces of information to provide.

It is a classic case of assuming if a user doesn't know what one has got then perhaps a boot loader may know better.

By your own admission you need to feed drivers from a floppy in order to get Windows to recognise the SCSI hard disks. Thus without a driver for Linux you should expect some difficulties.

Even now it isn't absoutely clear if you have RAID or not. There are also different RAIDs and Linux reads the disks doesn't mean the software can be installed safely.

In such a case one should investigate what Linux is seeing by the terminal command in Ubuntu
That will ask Linux to report back how many disks it sees and how many partitions in each one. This should be the key step before any installation.

If you have a Windows then it must reside in a partition. Every partition has a Type number for its identifcation. fat16, fat32 and ntfs are type 6, b (or c) and 7 respectively. Thus from the output you may get some idea how your disks have been arranged.

The last question I would be interested to ask is are you sure you got SCSI disks and not Sata?

You may have to type

sudo fdisk -l

In the terminal from the live cd

Duck2006,

You are right. Ubuntu does not permit log in as root and so all system-related commands must be preceded with "sudo".

One moment, need to download an Ubuntu live CD. I'll post the result as soon as I get it. (Kinda can't find the Ubuntu live CD I had >>, <<)

Well, the properties menu on windows shows me that they are SCSI discs, so I guess they are, unless you could specify any other programs / methods of checking. (I'm a fair newbie what goes on with computers / their hardware.)

EDIT.
Can anyone suggest a different live CD? Ubuntu kinda started crashing on me. o.o

Give SLAX or Knoppix a try, those are my favourite two, and they always seem to work.

Generally not a good idea changing distros to solve a problem...
But--good choices include:
Mepis
PCLinuxOS

It seems that I'm starting to run low on bandwich and downloading another set of 4gb size of information would get quite costly. By any chance, is there a way to run a terminal in a non-live CD, like openSUSE/Fedora Core6?

Or could posibly help me with the Ubuntu CD's problem. When starting it I get this (normal start/Safe graphic mode):

[171797xx,xxx000] hdd: ide_intr: huh? expected NULL handler on exit
[171797xx,xxx000] Buffer I/O error on device hdd, logical block 357564
(x represents changing numbers)