Red Hat Knowledgebase

Release Found: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3

Symptom:
Installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 fails with two hard drives attached to an Intel ICH5 Serial ATA (SATA) controller.

Anaconda starts, but soon displays the error message:

Serial ATA not 100% native mode

Soon after another error message is displayed:

hda: no response (status=0xfe) hdb: no response (status=0xfe)

The installation then fails.

Solution:
System boards based on the Intel i865/i875 chipsets and using the ICH5 SATA controller should set the BIOS settings for the SATA controller to either "enhanced" or "native" mode.

While "legacy" or "combined" modes are supported, they are discouraged.

Note: Not all BIOSes offer the ability to change these settings.