Installing Core 3 test3 on an AMD 64 with SATA & RAID

[Bloemkoolvreter]

Hello,

I have downloaded the x86_64 iso of Fedora Core 3 test 3, and I'm trying to install that on a MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum mobo. Specs in short:


nForce3 chipset
nVidia RAID chip (have no idea what exactly)
SATA Drive (Maxtor 200GB SATA)

Now when I boot from CD, i get the error that he doesn't find any hd's. So my question is, how do I get the installer to see my drive ? I know this can't be hard, it'll probably be just one kernel parameter I'll have to pass along when i boot from CD, but I just don't have a clue which one ...

Thanks in advance,

Bloemkool

[Dog-One]

I'm pulling FC3 RC1 and I'll try it on my MSI K8N Neo shortly. I do KNOW that sata_nv and the scsi modules need to be loaded into the kernel in order to access the nForce3 chipset disk controllers. I'm not real positive HOW to do this during the install, but I THINK if you use text mode, Alt-F2 gives you a shell prompt. IF the required modules are in the installer image, you SHOULD be able to load them. This is completely a guess, but I'll let you know for sure soon.

[Bloemkoolvreter]

I'm pulling FC3 RC1 and I'll try it on my MSI K8N Neo shortly. I do KNOW that sata_nv and the scsi modules need to be loaded into the kernel in order to access the nForce3 chipset disk controllers. I'm not real positive HOW to do this during the install, but I THINK if you use text mode, Alt-F2 gives you a shell prompt. IF the required modules are in the installer image, you SHOULD be able to load them. This is completely a guess, but I'll let you know for sure soon.

So how would i go about it then ? Boot until the installer asks if I want the media checked, press alt-f2 for another console, and then modprobe sata_nv and modprobe scsi ?

I'll try it now anyway, hope it'll work ...

[deuch]

Maybe see this for explication ...

www.areca.com.tw/support/ARCMSR/PACKAGES/Linux/DRIVER/Redhat-Fedora-core2-x86-64/readme.txt

Its for a Serial ATA RAID Card, but i suppose that the issue will be the same.

deuch

[Dog-One]

Okay, I have some good news and some bad news:

The good new is that FC3 RC1 has nVidia nForce3 SATA support in the installer--it sees all of my connected drives, even the USB externals.

The bad news is that if you are doing a network install, the installer does not have built-in support for the nForce3 GigE device, which will require you to build a driver disk (which is still useless if all you have is a USB pen drive as I do).

The only workaround in my case was to create a partition on one of the drives (I used my USB external drive) that contains the FC3 RC1 ISOs. With that you can do the install.

So if you need to load FC3 onto a bunch of AMD64 nForce3 machines, a slick and easy network install is out of the question without doing a fair amount of prep work to build a custom diskboot.img file. I'll start on that project and post the new image file ASAP.

[Dog-One]

This is interesting: The forcedeth.ko module is IN the diskboot.img, but anaconda doesn't give you the option to choose it during the install. Let me look so more...

[Bloemkoolvreter]

Okay, I have some good news and some bad news:

The good new is that FC3 RC1 has nVidia nForce3 SATA support in the installer--it sees all of my connected drives, even the USB externals

....

Then how come that when I try to start the install that I get the error message that he doesn't find any hard drives ?