Issue Installing SLED 10

[BeyondAphelion]

I just finished building a brand new system with brand new hardware. Everything works great, turns on, and it recognized by the BIOS. I inserted the installation DVD for SLED 10 for AMD64, and booted through my CDROM. So far, so good. I go into the "Installation" option. Things load, and all is good.

Starting hardware detection...
Activating usb devices...
Activating ieee1394 devices...


...etc...

Then I enter the installation screen. I enter my language. I agree to the Licence Agreement.

!!!

Error:
"No hard disks were found for the installation Please check your hardware!"

I press OK.

For kicks, I continue with the "New Installation". Only I find that after putting in my Time Zone Information, the "Partitioning" section in the Installation Summary shows this message in red lettering:

"No automatic proposal possible. Specify mount points manually in the 'Partitioner' dialog."

I went searching for similar issues online, and I wasn't alone, but I didn't really find a solution either. Many people were having this trouble when trying to dual boot their system with XP or Vista or whatever. My issue is that this is an OS-less computer right now. I want SLED 10 to be my main OS, and I'm at a loss for what to do.

The hard disk that the installation cannot apparently find is a SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD321KJ 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive.

Other possibly useful hardware information:

- GIGABYTE GA-MA69G-S3H Socket AM2 AMD 690G ATX AMD Motherboard
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Windsor 2.8GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM2 Processor
- G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
- Sony NEC Optiarc Black 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model DDU1615/B2s

My suspicion is that the problem has something to do with SATA, but I'm a total newbie to this stuff. Everything seems to be running perfectly up until installation. Any ideas???

Also what is the 'Partitioner' dialog, and how do I specify mount points manually? What does that mean?

I've tried all the installation modes on the DVD with the same result. I've also moved around the SATA connector location on my motherboard, and tried various OnChip SATA Types through my BIOS (SATA->AHCI, RAID, Native IDE). Nothing seems to budge. My hard disk is my boot priority, and as far as I can tell is recognized by everything but SLED installation.

Please, somebody help me out. I can't wait to get my new computer running on SLED!!!

[BeyondAphelion]

Any advice would be helpful.

[gogalthorp]

Dead hard drive??? Dead SATA port? Bad cable?

Does your BIOS show the hard drive?

Be sure all the plugs are set firmly, be sure there are no bent pins.