Install prob. on Dual Opteron/MSI MasterFAR2 with SCSI dev's

[niccload]

Hi,

I have just attempted to install Gentoo (2004.3) x86-64 version onto my Dual Opteron system, without success. The spec is:

MSI MasterFAR2 Mobo (BIOS v1.10)
2x AMD Opteron 242 Procs
2x Kingston PC2700 Registered ECC DIMMS
NVidia 128Mb FX5200 AGP Card
Adaptec 29160 Ultra160 SCSI card
IBM 36Gig 10k RPM SCSI Hard disk
Plextor 40x MAX SCSI CDROM

This system is currently configured with Windows 2003 Server, SQL Server and is totally stable.

Firstly, I am a total newbie to Linux (but am a microsoft technical consultant so understand the concept...) so I am probably being totally thick...

I downloaded the LiveCD ISO and burned it to CDRom. The cd boots, and the loader starts. Leaving the default options, the kernal does not find any storage devices and stops. \dev\scsi is empty.

Using the kernal options "gentoo doscsi", the system stops when trying to load SATA_SIS. The system is still active, and hitting Enter produces a new-line, but nothing else happens. After a while, the screen saver kicks in, but no further progress is made.

I have tried using various options eg. NOAPIC, but without any success...

PIf anyone has any suggestions to get me up and running, I would love to here their suggestions... I am desperate to unleash the full power of my system using Gentoo!!!

Many thanks in advance!

Cheers, Nic.

[niccload]

Okay - so I flashed the bios to v1.35. Read through the AMD64 support docs and tried many more kernal options...

EVERY time it stops when trying to load module sata_sis.

This is a standard workstation setup, and if linux can't install easily on this - then...... nuff said!

Nic.