ok i had linux installed with windows as a dual boot. The hard drive i had linux on died, as did my primary ide controller. so i went and bought a ultra ata 100 pci card. i can get windows working just fine, but when i try to install linux (and this happens with any distro i use so mind u i know its not my cd media) it boots off the cd and asks me where i want to install from, i tell it local cdrom, then it says the cd is not ther and to insert it. I thought mabey it was the pci card so i put the hd on the secondary contoller with the cx rom as a slave and it does the same thing. I also tried putting the cd rom on the ide controller card, but then it gives me this error message that says something like "....spec failed: tring to wing it.... boot failed press any key to try again." I really hate using windows constantly!!! My next though was to take the card out and try the 2 drives on the secondary controler on the motherboard again. If anyone has any ideas of what i should do next it would greatly be appreciated im so lost at this time on what to do. thanx in advance.

you could boot from a floppy and start the install, if the distro supports it.

gentoo does