Orphen,
It sounds like the reason you received the Invalid MAC address is the kernel recognizes the loopback, (which doesn’t have a MAC address, therefore it’s invalid) but it doesn’t recognize the physical interface itself. To verify, boot PXE and select Compatibility to find out if the kernel recognizes the HDD and Network. My guess is that it can’t find your network adapter.
The hdparm issue is not really an issue. That, from what I’ve found, is just letting you know that the kernel has HDD Drivers and has found support, but the drive isn’t loaded in that particular mode. It’s nothing bad, just letting you know that it’s not the appropriate controller to how the device is setup.
I’d recommend starting by finding out if your kernel has your network adapter which is what my best guess is the issue here.
I have built a kernel that, for linux, contains all Ethernet and USB Networking adapters.
You can download it at: [url]https://mastacontrola.com/fogboot/kernel/bzImage[/url]
Or you can wget it with:
[code]wget --no-check-certificate http://mastacontrola.com/fogboot/kernel/bzImage[/code]
Hopefully this will help you out.