[CentOS] sata_nv, CentOS 4 update 2 and hang during post-install

Mon Jan 16 23:33:11 UTC 2006
Zube <Zube at CS.ColoState.EDU>

Good day.  Thanks in advance for any help.

I have a Tyan S2895 (Thunder K8WE) with 2 275 Opterons and the latest
(1.02) bios.  It appears to have an nVidia nForce SATA chipset which
connects to a 250gb WD Caviar SATA drive.

Using the CentOS 4 update 2 x86_64 DVD, the install is peachy until
half-way through the "performing post install configuration" bit.
Then it hangs forever.  

I have tried:

disabling RAID in the bios
mem=256M on the command line
a text install -- the hang was at the 50% marker
a memory check -- all clean according to memtest86+ 1.65
CentOS 4 update 1 on cd
smaller root partition

without any change in behavior.

I then installed an old Adaptec 29160N and an old SCSI disk and turned off
the SATA bits in the BIOS.  CentOS installs just fine. 

Has anyone else seen this issue?  If it's a problem only with the nVidia 
SATA drivers, anyone have a recommendation for a SATA card that could be used
instead of the onboard stuff?  RAID is not necessary.

Thanks again.

Cheers,
Zube