I have a new Dell Dimension 8400 with a 250G Maxtor 7Y250M0 SATA HD.; Intel 82801FR SATA-AHCI controller. Although the current Dell BIOS A03 (10-11-04) lists alternatives, the default of SATA operation - Autodect AHCI - is the only one which will not produce an error. It won't boot on the others. It means "RAID if signed drives, otherwise AHCI" It's a single drive (no RAID) and partitioned 1/2 for Windows Xp which runs OK. The other half is unformatted.

I've tried unsuccessfully to install 3 different distros of Linux and none can find a hard drive to install on. I don't want to "detune" the SATA operation, even if I could to emulate IDE and lose SATA performance and DMA.

I've seem other posts where I was told that Linux can install on SATA drives.

Finally, my question: What specifically, is blocking the install of Linux on my computer? I'd like to dual boot with Xp. Is it the SATA controller, the Dell BIOS or ??

All your answers are here

http://www.pvv.org/~rolfn/linux.html

Linux is still quite messy in every distro. If you have difficulty recognizing whether you can install linux you might not want to install it--at least until they fix the massive mess that is linux in every distro.

I found this post that might help:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...36#post1395336

It is SATA that is causing your problems.

http://www.websamba.com/Linux_Docs_Links
-> Hardwares
-> Hardware Compatibility

Most distribution have their own list.

Sheng-Chieh