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soltino

4 Posts

11016

November 2nd, 2005 04:00

Installing Fedora Core 3 on 5150

I have a new Dell Dimension 5150 with a SATA drive installed. When I try and install FC 3 on it the hard drive is not found.
 
I have found several posts and articles for other Dell machines with a similar problem, which was fixed by updating the SATA operation BIOS setting - unfortunately all these posts suggested changing the setting to be 'combination'. The version of the BIOS (says its A00 from 08/15/05) that is on my machine does not have that setting, it only has 'RAID Autodetect/ATA' or 'Raid on'.
 
I also tried loading my office's copy of RHEL AS 4, just to try a more up to date version of Linux - had exactly the same problem, no hard drive detected...
 
Has anyone got any suggestions at all?
 
Thanks in advance!

donkey_darko

4 Posts

November 2nd, 2005 07:00

Hi Soltino
 
I've been trying to install FC4 on a Dimension 9100 and found that setting the BIOS to 'RAID Autodetect/ATA' will allow anaconda (the installer prgram) to recognise my SATA drives. So I would try that setting.
 
(Unfortunately, I still can't get Fedora to boot but that's another issue - see previous thread).
 
Good luck!
 

soltino

4 Posts

November 2nd, 2005 09:00

Hiya,

Yeah, thats actually the default setting which it didn't work on, sorry, should have mentioned that in my previous post.

This seems to be a common issue for the Dell Dimensions, as I've found several posts for other models with the same problem - shame their resolutions don't appear to be applicable to my machine.

The BIOS version seems a bit odd - A00 - do you reckon perhaps a different version of the BIOS might offer me the 'Combination' setting that appears to allow other Dimension boxes to successfully load Linux?

Thanks

soltino

4 Posts

November 3rd, 2005 05:00

Well I've just had it confirmed by my local Dell support... there are only two options under the SATA operation BIOS setting on the 5150, and neither of these worked for installing Fedora...

I can't return the PC as intrinsically there is nothing wrong with it, just that the BIOS does not allow me to load the software that I want to - if I wanted to load XP I'd have bought an XP machine... thats why I bought the PC with no OS installed.

So I've just bought a bit of kit that is now of no use to me whatsoever. Well, it might make a nice doorstop, if a little large.

Thanks Dell

 

soltino

4 Posts

November 3rd, 2005 22:00

Here is an excellent article which offers a few workarounds if you are having problems loading Linux on SATA drives. Unfortunately none of the workarounds offered work for me :( except for buying a PATA drive and installing on that.... but I don't relish the idea of having to spend more money to get this bit of kit working.

http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html

dscrappy

85 Posts

November 18th, 2005 09:00

Same problem here.  Purchase to make a linux box and I can't find the SATA to install.  Hopefully therte will be a bios update to allow this...  Please update if you find a workaround.

 

Thanks

dscrappy

85 Posts

November 18th, 2005 10:00

Just realized that Bios version A02 is out...  Gonna try that and see if it makes a differnce.  I will post back...

dscrappy

85 Posts

November 18th, 2005 11:00

Still a no go... Anyone from Dell wanna comment and suggest a possible fix?

jacole

23 Posts

April 12th, 2006 18:00

Fedora Core 5 will work with Intel Matrix (Raid 1).

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