problem installing linux

[varun_ccet]

hello everybody.
earlier also i had put a post here to get some help installing linux on my system
i tried many flavours of linux like, xandross, ubantu etc.
i have a SATA harddisk with XP running on it.
the problem i face is that the hard disk is not detected by the linux os while installing.
where does the problem lies??
do i need SATA drivers for the installation. what type of partition is to be made on the harddrive to install linux on it?

the partition details of my harddisk.
a 80 gb SATA drive with four NTFS partitions.
one primary partition with xp installed on it.
the extended partition is devided in 3 other & it also has 10 gb free space on which i was trying to install linux.

[techieMoe]

What type of motherboard do you have? Is your SATA drive set up in any kind of RAID configuration?

[varun_ccet]

i have a TUL motherboard, the harddisk is not set in any kind of raid.

[DoctorDan]

Is it possible that Linux just doesnt like messing with the NTFS?

[techieMoe]

Is it possible that Linux just doesnt like messing with the NTFS?

Linux can read NTFS just fine and will coexist with NTFS partitions. The only problem Linux has is with writing to NTFS partitions.

[stubbe]

maybe you do need sata drivers. What distro you currently use? I have tested fedora core 5 side-by-side with XP and it detected the NTFS partition without any problem, on SATA harddrive. Do you just using one harddrive or multiple?

[varun_ccet]

i have got a TUL motherboard (model A480A7-VF) which has a ULi(ALi) RAID BIOS.
i was provided with a floopy disk having ULi SATA raid drivers for windows , which r required for every windows installation.
i have connected 1 seagate SATA HDD. which is nt set in any kind of raid. windows xp installed on it.
i hv tried many distr. of linux. but they dont detect my harddisk.
i need to install RED HAT ENTERPRISE LINUX v4 . i tried a lot .it has support for many sata controllers but still it doesnt detect my harddisk.
do i need to search for more drivers??
if yes someone pls help me out searching as i have tried my best.

[stubbe]

Do you have any slackware CD in your hand? Try booting with it, with option sata.i then enter setup just to see wether it detects your hard drive. If it's not, well, one very good place to start searching is seagate.com see if you can find anything from seagate website on linux issues.