ok, I looked around a bit, there are sometimes problems with FC5 and SATA drives, but I noticed you said "the partition"...have you created just one partition for Linux? you need 3 of them:
- a data partition mounted at /boot
- a data partition mounted at /
- a swap partition
without these partitions no install is possible! I've tried FC5 just once (it sucked), so I don't know much about the installation process anymore, but there should be something like a partition wizard...use it if you don't feel safe with creating the partitions by hand. the best way for beginners to install Linux is to have an unformatted empty space on the HDD and chose "Use free space on selected drives and create default layout" in the install menu, this will create all needed partitions in the empty space.
if all this will not help (or isn't possible because of HDD errors) it's maybe a hardware imcompatibility, in this case post mainboard- and HDD-manufacturer/model.
but well, imo FC5 isn't a real good distro, I had many problems with it trying to upgrade a RH9-system, and even a complete install gave me a lot of errors because some services couldn't be started. my favourite distro is Debian, it may have not an nice-looking graphical installer but it worked without any problems on every box I've tried yet.
well, anyway, let us know if my tips helped...
