FC3/SATA/AMD64 good install / error loading operating system

[falcon78]

I received a new system about 9 hours ago and have been tying to get it to install FC3 (amd64) since then. I seem to be able to install the OS fine, but when I reboot (as the install wizard asks), I get the following message "Error loading operating system."

In my BIOS, I don't see my hard-disk under IDE (primary/slave/etc.). But the tech support guy told me that since it is a SATA drive, a raid controller controls it rather than the BIOS...in any case, since I was able to install fine, the drive obviously works.

I just want a simple installation of linux on my computer...what can I do?????

Following are my hardware specs: (straight from vendor's invoice email):
Description Qty
ULB 64 2005 CUSTOM WORKSTATION 1
LIAN LI PC-V1200 (Black) ext atx ALUMINUM QUIET TOWER 1
ENERMAX 465P-VE-24P WISPER (WITH DUAL MP SUPPORT XP P4 READY) 1
Tyan Thunder K8W S2885ANRF AGP 8X AGP PRO IEEEE OPTERON 1
AMD OPTERON 240(OEM) OSA240 (60 DAY STD WARRANTY) 1
AMD OPTERON 240(OEM) OSA240 (60 DAY STD WARRANTY) 1
THERMALTAKE A1838 AMD Opteron / Athlon64 CPU Heatsink/Fan for 1
THERMALTAKE A1838 AMD Opteron / Athlon64 CPU Heatsink/Fan for 1
CORSAIR DDR 2 GIG 2100 REG ECC 2 GB Low Profile CM74SD2048RLP-2100 Tested on Intel, Tyan and Supermicro boards w/ e7500 and e7501 chipsets. Should also work on Serverworks GC-LE chipset 2
Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 160GB Serial ATA, 7200 RPM HDS722516VLSA80 1
FLOPPY DRIVE MITSUMI 35W 1
OPERATING SYSTEM( NONE) BARE BONE 1

I've seen similar messages elsewhere but have not seen a single solution.
Please let me know if you need more information.

Thanks!!!!!!! :confused:

[Dog-One]

Probably the first thing I'd check is to make sure RAID is completely disabled in BIOS. That should allow your BIOS to see the drives during boot.

[falcon78]

Dog-One,
I don't see an option to disable RAID in my bios (bios seems to be from American Megatrends, version 2.53).

If I disable raid, will it have a negative effect on my system? I'm not even completely sure what RAID is, I just have one disk...and hopefully its big enough that I won't need to add another one for a while.

[falcon78]

actually I just saw an option under:
BIOS main screen->Advance->Device & PCI Slots Configuration->Onboard Serial ATA mode:
Raid or Ultra

I switched to Ultra, saved settings and continuted system load but I got the same message. I booted the machine and still couldn't see my disk under:
BIOS main screen->Advance->IDE Configuration:
Primary IDE Master [Not Detected]
Primary IDE Slave [Not Detected]
Secondary IDE Master [Not Detected]
Secondary IDE Slave [my cd-rom shows up here]

I don't want to investigate this further unless someone here tells me to ... since it is 1:30 in the morning now :)

[falcon78]

It worked!!!! I switched to Ultra settings, then REINSTALLED fedora 3, and I was just able to log into beautiful (actually not so) GNOME! I did have one startup failure of smartd, but at least the system is usable now! Thanks.

[leaded]

I am interested... does smartd not work for SATA drives?

[falcon78]

honestly, I never even heard of smartd before tonight. Maybe others can chime in.

[leaded]

smartd is the Daemon for S.M.A.R.T., which is some abbreviation for a built-in disk-fail protection. I don't know how to describe it.

My computer BIOS has the ability to run a S.M.A.R.T. check on power-up, and I was able to prevent losing my data on my last hard drive because it detected a bad sector or something (like I said, I don't know what it checks) and I replaced the drive and transferred the data over before a catastrophy!

I thought I had the smartd program running though... it didn't detect anything- just the BIOS. I guess I'd like to know more about smartd too :)

[Dog-One]

smartd is in a state of flux at the moment. It can deal with regular PATA controllers just fine. With SATA it's a different story. SATA is currently supported under the kernel as a block device driver (module) for most chipsets. The problem lies in the fact that these modules make the SATA drives look to the system like SCSI devices which smartd can't fully deal with. In a future version of smartmontools, it is expected that a I/O control path will be added to the SATA modules that allows smartd to talk to the drives just as it does with PATA drives. I would expect by March to have full SMART support with SATA drives. So stay tuned...