After installing Fedora Core 3 or 4, the boot process gets stuck during the "initializing Hardware" phase
Problem
After installing Fedora Core 3 or 4, the boot process gets stuck during the 'Inializing Hardware' phase. This occurs on system running with the Highpoint RocketRAID SATA RAID controller.
Details
This is due to the boot scripts attempting the load the mv_sata driver after the hptmv driver has already been loaded. This problems stems from the fact that the Supermicro and Highpoint cards both share the same PCI ids.
Solution
Boot the system into rescue mode using the installation media. To prevent the system from loading the mv_sata driver, add the following entries to /etc/hotplug/blacklist:
hptmv mv_sata
In addition, edit /etc/modprobe.conf to remove any mv_sata alias.