Precision 380 SATA drive not found in 9.2 install

I have recently tried to install Suse Professional 9.2 on a Dell Precision 380. Unfortunately, the OS does not recognize the SATA controller during install. The Dell box has an Intel 82801 GR/GH ICH7R/DH SATA raid controller. There are no drivers available for Suse from Intel and the ata_piix kernel module does not recognize the hard drives. I have tried to switch the SATA controller to "combination" in bios. It can than recognize the drive, setup the partitions but while the drive is being formatted, it just hangs forever. Any ideas?