[PLUG] Intel MB woes

[Aaron Ten Clay]

Roderick A. Anderson writes: 

> alan wrote:
>> On Thu, 21 Jun 2007, Roderick A. Anderson wrote: 
>> 
>>> alan wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 21 Jun 2007, Roderick A. Anderson wrote: 
>>>> 
>>>>> We just got a system with an Intel BLKDG965RYCK main board.  Can't get 
>>>>> it very far into the install process.  It keeps asking for an device 
>>>>> to install from.  This is with every Redhat-ian distribution we can 
>>>>> find. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> A Samsung DVD/CD Writer on the IDE controller and every conceivable 
>>>>> combination or hard drives.
>>>>>   Started with a SCSI host adapter (Adaptec), went to a SATA drive 
>>>>> connected to the on board controller, finally a plain old IDE drive on 
>>>>> the IDE chain with the DVD/CD drive. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> We have also tried a simple 52X CD ROM drive and that too went 
>>>>> horribly wrong. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Anyone familiar with this MB?  Any joy installing Linux on one?  It's 
>>>>> beginning to feel like a hardware issue.
>>>> 
>>>> Have you tried booting with "noapic"? 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Don't remember seeing this option (and it's all a blur right now :-)? 
>>> BIOS setup or boot option?
>> 
>> Kernel boot option.  Tends to fix booting issues on some Intel 
>> motherboards. 
>> 
> 
> Found it referred to from a search using Google.  Sad part is there is _no 
> joy_.  Didn't work.  Even tried a 'noapci'. 
> 
> Thanks for the clue. 
> 
> 
> Rod
> --  
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I've been building systems with Intel MB similar to that one for a while 
now. I have no issues with Gentoo, but in trying to install Windows on those 
boards I've run into a host of problems. My first guess would be to check 
what mode the SATA controller is in. Intel's controller has a couple of 
"legacy" modes to let Windows XP and older work. 

In the board's setup menu, under Advanced, under Drive Configuration:
ATA/IDE Mode: if set to Native, represents SATA devices as SATA devices. If 
set to Legacy, represents all devices as PATA to software, but I've had 
problems with this setting. 

With the ATA/IDE mode set to Native, an additional option usually appears: 
Configure SATA as: which has at least the options IDE and AHCI. In my 
experience IDE shows the devices to Windows as PATA, but Linux sees right 
through that. Windows pre-Vista doesn't understand AHCI, but that's what I 
use as Linux has no problems with it. 

If none of this helps (ie. none of the mode combinations get the installer 
to see your CD-ROM) maybe you can provide specific details about which 
distro you're attempting to install and I can give it a test. 

 -Aaron