Can anyone help me out with this problem? Having seen Linux operating on a friend’s P.C. I decided that I would like to evaluate it and then install on my PC.
I have tried a boot from DVD Suse 9.3 and this completely hangs after the kernel has been installed and it comes to loading ata_pix. I have tried every combination of drive configuration in my Bios all to no avail(SATA/PATA, SATA only). Thinking that it may be the installation disk I purchased Mandrake ver. 10.0 also a copy of Linux for dummies which came with Suse 9.3 full installation. All the different systems hang at the same point. Convinced it was the SATA interface causing the problems. I then installed a 10G Ata 66 HD formatted it to NTFS disconnected both SATA drives, and reconfigured the Bios and tried again. Using the boot from DVD Linux disk I got a little further into the boot sequence but then the system went into a continuous loop when it came to the ‘Handlers’ section where IRQ 5 becomes disabled and tells me ‘Nobody cared’ I have tried the boot from DVD on another machine (SATA drive 3rd party drive card, ATA 133 secondary drive, gigabyte motherboard) and it all loaded without a hitch.

My system is as follows.
MotherBoard: Asus P5P800 Flashed to the latest version.
HD: 2 Maxtor SATA (200G and 120G) both formatted to NTFS
DVD: 2 Pioneer DVR-109
Ram: 2 G DDR 3200
CPU: 3G Pentium775 Hyper threading technology
Keyboard: Logitech cordless (Substituted for standard keyboard in case of driver conflict)

Any guidance on this will be greatly appreciated.

No idea what your problem is.
Are you aware that you can select consoles during boot "Ctrl + Alt + F1 to F6. They contain various messages about he boot process which may give you a clue.

Have you tried formatting over a "blank" hard drive? I had this problem trying to install SuSE 9.3 over an NTFS partition. For some reason, it simply hangs during the install. Try "gdisking" the new drive and do a DoDwipse (department of defense standards). Then, install SuSE over the fresh drive. I'm not sure why that's needed, but it worked for me. Good luck!

set the sata drive controller to legacy

I have tried formatting a completely black hard drive using partition magic 8. this was formatted to NTFS and then tried installing Suse. Still the same. None too sure what gdisking is nor DoDwipse? Is this a Linux command as I have not been able to find a dos command of this title? I have yet to cut my teeth on Linux as I can't install it. I am now thinking about buying a coal burning pc to install Linux on so I can get some experience with it in order to tackle this problem on my every day pc.

Many Thanks

i dont think you need or should use partition magic as Suse creates its own parttitions on install

The HD choices in the P5P800 are SATA, SATA+PATA, PATA only the only Legacy mentioned with this Bios refers to the USB set up which is set to Auto.