unable to install to Sata drive on Promise TX4 controller. latest installer wont recognize it

[Mitchell Laks <mlaks@post.harvard.edu>]

Hi,
I am an experienced debian installer, user.
I have installed debian about 30-40 times on various machines. 
I have been trying the last 2 days to   install on a  
sata drive on a machine with a Promise Sata Tx4 4 channel controller controller as well
as an old adaptec ata   raid 2400a.

Till now for simplicity I have installed on PATA IDE drives for system and used sata for storage.

I want to  install debian to a seagate 750G sata drive, 
but both the debian 4.0r5 etch installer
and also the latest nightly build of the lenny installer from 
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
don't recognize my hard drive, they only see the data drive, in this case the adaptec ata raid 2400a.

I checked, and the BIOS certainly recognizes the drive, and the bios from both the Promise Tx4 and 
Adaptec 2400a post on the  screen.

I want to avoid having to install on a pata drive and mirror the install to the sata drive.

I know that the SATA TX4 is debian compatible ( I use it on about 10 machines just not for the system boot, just as data).
I think that the installer does not have the proper kernel module.

I like the TX4 controller card, it is very versatile and  relatively cheap.
 

Thanks,

Mitchell Laks