I have recently obtained a Dell dimension 8400 series with the following characteristics:
Pentium® 4 Processor 530 with HT Technology (3.2GHz, 800 FSB)
Operating System
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Video Card
128MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon™ X300 SE
Memory
2 GB2 Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 400MHz (2x1GB)
Hard Drive
160GB2 Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)

I have been trying to install linux to this computer. Starting from Suse 9.1, or suse 9.0 to Red hat 9.0 or Red hat WS but the same message shows up. "Unable to recognize the hard drive."
Has anybody experience this problem? If so, what are the possible solutions? I can't change the computer but I need Linux on it.
THANKS

You would probably have better success using the SATA drive with a more recent distro using a 2.6.8 kernel. Fedora Core 2 for example.

Hey masc1130,

I have a very similar Dell system to you. It is less than 1 month old and I bought a copy of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 on CD ROM from Red Hat and I am receiving the same message "Unable to recognize HD” I am in the process of learning how to get the SATA Hard Drive recognized. I have no solution yet but I have been suggest to do two things: 1) recompile your kernel and 2) change system BIOS to combination rather than SATA Raid. I have not tried either yet because I am looking for more specifics first. If you choose #2 you have to reinstall Windows…I do not know if RHEL 3 will install even if I make the change.

Let me know if you find anything, I will do the same.

Thanks,
- Jimmy