I have been trying to install windows xp mce 2005 for quite some time now. I would rather use AHCI for my drive rather than ata emulation mode (setable in BIOS) Unfortunately, when I use the manufacturer supplied AHCI drivers (82801fr/ich6r) the computer consistantly blue screens(all windows modes) on the first boot(and there after) after the system is installed. Earlier I was looking for a way to stop the machine at the bluescreen so that I can read it, or read the event log from recovery console (though that sounds like an obivous use of the recovery console I can not seem to find a way to do this). The most annoying thing is, another computer I tried installing it on, one with almost identical hardware, has the same issue, and the fact that I somehow prevously installed it on this computer with only minor hickups with the driver. Is there anything I need to know about these systems/mce2k5, or drivers? The medium I am using to install the driver specific to the sata controller is floppy. Since I only have one floppy drive I was able to test the integrety of the cable, drive, and floppy by running md5 checksums on all the files after they were copied (I has to trick windows to get it to re read the disk rather than jsut cache of the files it copied) also- Both potential installation machines had their memory tested, and both are using a completely different set of peripherals, hard drives, etc (though I disconnected most of the stuff when I started having issues). Thanks for any help

Are the drivers signed? If this did work before and drivers are known correct then try two things. Set bios to failsafe settings or default setting. Try again. See how to reset irq or device config in bios. It might be order of devices loading. There is a page at MS somewhere about how to stop blue screen so one can see it. (think that is where I read it.) Don't forget to try a cold boot. Unplug power and cycle on/off button a few times to remove any stored energy.

well I dont know where i got the drivers before when I prevously installed this, but yes it has worked before :( I am going to look for that article on, thx.

OK - I fixed it, by following the directions here: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~jywu/note... Anyone else having this problem should try this. I still dont knowe what went wrong with the floppy method, I check the CRC of the files i copied over each and every time, and I was using the same exact floppy drive and cable on both of the other problemed systems. I'm thinking windows either had some sort of conflict with the drivers on the floppy, or the fact that I'm using yet another driver version (the one mentioned on that site). good luck