Hello,
I am trying to set up Ubuntu 8.04 LTS onto my new PC. The process goes smoothly until I get to the Prepare Partition stage when my Hard Drive does not appear.
System details: ASUS P5Q PRO Mother Board, ASUS P5Q Pro (Gb LAN 8-ch HD Audio Crossfire)
Intel® Core™2 Quad Q8200 Quad Core 4x2.33GH CPU,Western Digital Black Caviar 500GB SATA Hard Drive.WD5001AALS.
I am a total novice with Linux but I am guessing this might be a show stopper for me with the Hard Drive being the issue. Shame.
Any advice gratefully received.
Kind Regards,
Paul

boot your computer and go to bios setup and make sure your hard drive is enabled. and make sure it is set boot from it. cdrom first then sata drive. let me know what happens.

Thanks Drakeo,

I have set BIOS Boot order as follows:
1) IDE: PHILLIPS DVDR 1640P
2) SATA DRIVE
The options I have in BIOS are Floppy Drive,SATA drive,ATAPI CDROM,IDE: PHILLIPS DVDR 1640P.
Not sure why I have ATAPI CD ROM & PHILLIPS DVDR 1640P seperately. Assume they are same beast - I only have the one DVD Drive. I assume as the SATA drive appears as a boot option this suggests all is well. I have disabled Floppy and ATAPI CD ROM on boot setup at moment.
I have updated the latest BIOS from ASUS: 2002-1048576 2009-03-13. I checked the standard settings for the BIOS on updating.

Still no joy I am afraid. I do not see the 'Prepare disk space' window on installation - rather I get 'Starting up Partitions' and then 'Prepare partitions' but with no device in the window.
I have run the disk checker and memory checker on Ubunto and all seems well.
TBH I have little idea on where to go next. This is where I am headed:
1) Look at the BIOS and make sure all looks OK but I am not sure I will be able to see any problem if it exists,
2) Try later versions of Ubuntu (8.10 and the beta version 9). In that order.
3) I will get a copy of Windows XP and will install this and see if works.

Grateful for further help.

Kind Regards,
Paul

Another thing that you might want to check are the Legacy settings in the BIOS for your hard drive and what value is set there to.

Paul Langdon:

Your idea of getting newer Ubuntu 8.10 is good. But if it doesn't work try this--

when ubuntu live installer loads the options at boot--

press Tab

see the blinking editing bar at the end of kernel options, add:

acpi=off noapic vga=normal

then hit Enter

I have come across similar problem with Ubuntu 8.04 over an ATI mboard and chips, those options worked.

Yes you have a great hardware platform, but I suspect the Quad type you have does grabbed some IRQs that the hard drive lost its share.

The vga=normal switch is intended to zero-down possibilities of resolution issues, anyway you can set higher values after installation.

Good luck.

Hope this helps.

Thanks to all. At the moment I am in the clear,as I have managed to install Ubunto 8.10(64).
As to the 8.04 LTS and the hard drive issue, I did receive a suggestion that if I configured ny SATA drive as 'AHCI' all would be well. I assume this means the 8.04 kernel did not have the drivers for IDE?
Please note I have not tested this.
Thanks for all the help on this - this bodes well for the future as I am sure I an going to need further assistance!
I must also thank the Novatech support man who when I explained my issue with the Hard Drive suggested the 'AHCI' solution. This company seems excellent.
Kind Regards,
Paul