I'm attempting a default install of Fedora 6 from CDs. It is the only O/S to be installed. All of the hardware components are brand new except the outer case.

Pentium D 2.8/800
Kingston 1GB DDR2
Intel D102GGC2 motherboard
Radeon X1650XT PCI-E
Seagate 300 GB SATA
Plextor DVD burner
Antec 500W Power Supply

I don't have the network cable plugged in yet.

Everything appears to go smoothly until after the reboot. Then it appears to stick for quite a while after "Generating SSH2 DSA host key". The top right corner says "starting SSHD". Then a whole bunch of stuff fails and goes off the screen before I can read very much of it. For a brief time I see a blue screen with a mouse pointer in the center. Finally I'm left with a 40 column display with multiple error messages like:

end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 546781269

This is the second SATA disk I've tried (I used an 80GB SATA before), and I got the same type of error messages.

I also tried to create the /, /boot, and SWAP partitions manually, but ended up with similar errors.

Is this SECOND hard disk also DOA, or am I doing something wrong?

(I'd attempt Fedora 8 except that I couldn't find it as CD iso's, only a DVD iso, and I haven't got a convenient DVD burner on a computer with an O/S.)

I'd appreciate any suggestions, hints or advice. Thanks in advance.

Plugging in the network cable has no effect.

I've generally seen this error when a hard disk or controller is going bad. Since you've tried two disks I'd be more inclined to suspect the controller. One thing to note, though, is that Fedora 6 is getting somewhat old. Can you easily try again with Fedora 8? There might be some problem in the SATA subsystem that's been fixed between 6 and 8. If that doesn't do that, I'd suggest trying a bootable diagnostic disk to check if there is a problem with the hard/drive and/or controller. With any luck, your motherboard or hard drive came with one or one is available to download from the manufacturer. If not, there are things like the ultimate boot CD that do this.

I just noticed something else right after "Checking for hardware changes [ OK ]":

FATAL: Error inserting acpi_cpufreq (/lib/modules/2.6.18-1.2798.fc6/kernel/arch/i386/kernel/cpu/cpufreq/acpi_cpufreq.ko): No such device

Another datum: Manually partitioning with a / (root) partition of 20GB has no effect.

After a couple of optical drive transplants, I managed to create a Fedora 8 DVD. Alas, not much joy there, either. Now, when the monitor goes to 40 column mode, it says (repeatedly):

INIT: cannot execute "/sbin/mingetty"

and (also repeatedly):

INIT: Id "5" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes.

Every five minutes or so similar error messages appear. Sometimes the Id being disabled is 1, 2, 3, or 4.

What's weird is the boot appears successful until it's time for the video drivers to load. It hangs on the blue screen with the mouse pointer for quite a while, then, bam! 40 column mode.

This is more fun than getting a cavity filled.