Installtion can't find hard drive

[rmotoole]

Installing FC-4 on Pentium III processor with Western Digital WD200BB 20 G-byte drive.

The disk was cleaned before I obtained the system. I successfully installed Windows 2000 prior to FC-4 installation and created a 8 Gbyte NTFS window partion using the windows installation program. Windows boots and reconizes the disk.

During FC-4 installation the program indicates an error, no hard drive found and offers a menu of drivers. None seem to match the Western Digital disk. Continuing the installation leads to partitioning with Disk Druid. When selected I get a messages error - no valid device for installtion. Western Digital site doesn't offer Linux drivers. I have not been able to identify any documentation indicating this as an unsupported disk.

Any help is appreciated.

[taurus]

Is it a EIDE, SATA, SCSI, etc.? Normally, FC is real good of identifying hardwares on your system so it's kind of strange that it can't find your harddrive. Just wondering, you have XP on the first partition as NTFS so what's the format for the rest of it?

[rmotoole]

This is an EIDE disk. The first partiion is Windows 2000 with NTSF files sytem, 8 Gbyte, the rest of the disk is free space

[taurus]

Did you happen to format that empty space with any filesystem?

[rmotoole]

I did not format the empty space, although it was probably formated as NTSF prior to wiping the disk.

[Firewing1]

That's odd -- I use a WD disk and it's fine. Are your drivers / firmware / BIOS up to date? Also, maybe you wanna wait 'till March 13th for FC5 -- Save your 4h of installing and configuring for a better, faster (I'm using FC5T2, it's much faster!!!) product.
Firewing1

[tomcat]

Check if your cables are set correctly, sometimes, loose cables are the source of this issue. Furthermore, format the 8GB in Fat32 mode and reboot. Maybe FC4 can detect the drive if it ain't formatted as NTFS.

By default, all WD harddisks should work with Fedora and every other Linux distro (I had many WD drives and none of them refused to work).

[Firewing1]

Originally Posted by tomcat

Check if your cables are set correctly, sometimes, loose cables are the source of this issue.

Very true... Maybe clean it out of dust too (detach IDE wires, blow, reattach firmly) as this could be causeing the issue.
Firewing1

[kmcfarlane]

How is the drive connected? Is it connected directly to the motherboard or is it connected to a PCI card (e.g., Ultra66)? If it is connected to a PCI card, my advice is to move it to the the mobo. My experience is that 2.6.11-1.1369_FC4 does not work properly with PCI-attached drives.

[rmotoole]

Thanks for the help and suggestions.

I've tried cleaning the and remating cables. Seems to be a harware issue, itermittent of some sort. Actually things have gotten worse. I'm only able to occasionally boot the system, most instances totally fail to access the drive. I'm leaning to a new hard drive at this point. I'm fairly certain its not a linux or s/w issue.

Thanks again for the help. Marty

[Firewing1]

If you can't boot then it's certainly a HW issue. Try a Western Digital HD; @ Future Shop they're ~200$ w/ tax (CAD... I'm up north ) for 160GB hd. I've had excellent performance and experiences w/ W-D hard drives.
Firewing1