Athlon PC won't handle hard drives properly - Can't install

[MadCatMk2]

I will be using what used to be my untangle server from now on, here are the specs:
Athlon 800 on a Shuttle AK12 v1.1 with 768MB of RAM.

I tried installing PCLinuxOS Gnome and Xfce (even loaded OS on RAM and these disks have been used for installations before. Several hard disks and CD/DVD drives have been tested.) , as well as another linux OS, but encountered the same issue every time.
While formatting the hard drive the system just crashes. Whether it's during installation or through drakdisk.

I haven't come up with another explanation other than the BIOS settings of the motherboard.
However I'm not familiar with most of them. I would appreciate it if someone could take a look at the settings.

http://www.overclock.net/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=23246

Thanks

[menotu]

This may be of assistance re partitioning:

http://partedmagic.com/

[MadCatMk2]

I found out that up to 10 GB of disk space is supported after a lot of testing.. but it crashes during installation afterwards.

[T6]

is it a slot a socket for the cpu?  if that is the case it is a very old pc, 1999-98

in that time a 40 gb hard disk was recognized as 8 gb hard disk most times and a 80 gb hard disk was recognized as 20 or 10 gbs

bios on those days were very limited by the cilynder and head concepts from old systems

if you can create the partitions you need on another pc and then connect the hard disk to the athlon it could be enough

the suggestion made by menotu can help too, also gparted livecd can help you

this apps can bypass bios and do the tasks "talking" directly with the hard disk and avoiding the bios limitations

}if the space reported by the system is correctly, a 40 gb hard disk is seen as a 40 gb hard disk then the problems partitioning could be caused by two reasons

1. errors in the mbr or in logical sectors/partitions, this can be fixed by a low level format, the manufacturer tool to wipe the hard disk can help you, samsung, maxtor, hitachi, seagate and others will have this tool in their websites

2. hard disk failures, on the surface of the platters or in the logical controller, in both situations is easier to replace the hard disk, it is practically dead

[MadCatMk2]

Nope it's not slot socket, you can find the specs here, http://www.shuttle.eu/_archive/older/en/ak12.htm
I tried a 10 GB HDD, a 60 GB one and an 80 GB one, using a 9GB partition on it. All were recognized properly size-wise.
I'm gonna try parted magic in a while and see what happens.

Edit: Partedmagic revealed that the HDDs are not in a great shape, as expected, but they pass the tests. Gparted fails just as wonderfully with it.

[menotu]

Edit: Partedmagic revealed that the HDDs are not in a great shape,

Have you got a spare disk cable that you can try as I had disk partitioning problems a while ago and it turned out to be the cable - as soon as I put a new cable in everything was hunky dory!

[T6]

then it is the second situation i described  

before doing anything else change the ide cables, those things die so weird, try changing them

   menotu you write too fast!

[MadCatMk2]

Yep, tried three cables. CD and HDD on the same one, on seperate, as master, as slave etc.
Just tried formatting another 10 GB HDD in partedmagic and you guessed it, gparted crashed the whole system again.
Running out of ideas here. Who knows what time can do to an old motherboard.

[T6]

you are booting form a ide drive and also the hard disk is connected to the same ide or was just one of the possible combination

if always you had the hard disk in the same ide cable with the cdrom it is a problem for some systems and cdroms, usually you should have a cdrom as master or slave on the second ide cable

about time and old mainboards, usually the ide connectors are twisted or failing, the connector itself is not the best technology around, too easy to damage

when a mainboard has more than 10 years i usually discard it, even if it is working, i know it is about to fail

in your case, the cpu could be saved but a old athlon at 800mhz is slow for this days, perhaps save the ram and the biggest hard disk(the 10 gb disk is 10+ years old, useful as art in the wall bot viable as hard disk) and get other not that old used parts and create a new old pc?

[MadCatMk2]

The single cable was just one of the options. Ahh, IDE, what a relationship of love and hate it is.
Sure this PC is rather old and I could save some money to buy an atom motherboard that would pretty much work out of the box, but where's the fun in that?

I'm gonna try replacing the HDD with a USB stick and call it a day.
Thanks a lot; both of you

[DeBaas]

tried 'noapic' as extra Grub startup option ?
needed this on a MSI mobo with Duron900...

[T6]

"Ahh, IDE, what a relationship of love and hate it is."

you mean hate hate isn't?  

"Sure this PC is rather old and I could save some money to buy an atom motherboard that would pretty much work out of the box, but where's the fun in that?"

the fun is where you don't loose your sanity, your time and enjoy using the system, not fixing it but when you have lots of free time everything is relative

"I'm gonna try replacing the HDD with a USB stick and call it a day."

this could not be a option on this motherboard, if it is as old as i think, there is not a boot from usb option on that bios, i hope i'm wrong, anyway it is probably usb 1.1 or 1.0, terribly slow

[MadCatMk2]

Oh I lost my sanity long ago. It's not even free time I'm wasting.
IDE has served me well in many cases, can't deny that. Slow, crappy cables and policy but it works.

There's a boot from USB option in the BIOS but I got bored waiting for it to install.

DeBaas, noapic dropped the HDD into a continuous restarting loop. Interesting.