Hi all,
I finally got a replacement motherboard for the exploding capacitor one
(http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg10311.html) - and
it seems to be a pretty decent one -
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=619
Now, I wanted to install Debian on the system - and I decided to use the
Sarge DVD provided with PCQ. Problem is, I do not have a DVD drive in my
desktop - though I have a combo in my laptop.
So, I decided to make the desktop boot from LAN, and using a dhcp server
running on my laptop, and utilizing PXE boot, I managed to boot into the
Debian installer (linux26) from the laptop over the network.
I had setup Apache in my laptop to act as a Debian mirror (with the
packages from the DVD) - Alias /debian /mnt/cdrom
..etc.
The bootup was fine - but the installer did not recognise the inbuilt
network card in the Nforce2 mobo. So, I plugged in the network cable to
the realtek 8139 based card, and setup the network with DHCP.
I manually set the mirror address to my laptop IP, and the installer
managed to download the rest of the components from the laptop.
However, after that, the installer failed - saying that it is unable to
detect any partionable disk.
Thinking that something must be wrong with the 2.6 kernel that was being
used, I retried with linux (ie, the 2.4 series kernel). But with that,
my network card (Realtek one) fails to come up. I tried setting the IP
manually - but that too, did not work.
Any ideas on what may be wrong ?
-thanks-
Sayamindu
PS: For some reason, I think that the installer is trying to detect SATA
drives - instead of the normal PATA ones that I have. Some SATA related
modules are being loaded before the disk detection process.
