Thinkpads Forum

Not sure what is causing the following but I's sure like to nail it down.

We install corporate build of XP Professional via Ghost. We have to change the SATA Controller Mode Option from AHCI to Comaptibility mode or the corporate build of XP Pro will bluescreen while loading XP.

Any ideas?

Robert

mchero wrote:Not sure what is causing the following but I's sure like to nail it down.

We install corporate build of XP Professional via Ghost. We have to change the SATA Controller Mode Option from AHCI to Comaptibility mode or the corporate build of XP Pro will bluescreen while loading XP.

Any ideas?

Robert

Yes, Comaptibility mode is necessary to install XP, but not with Vista because Vista has SATA drivers on board.

Here is a link that may help:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-66020

I had the same problem. I swear I thought I was going to throw my machine against the wall.

It's completely normal. Like MGO said, XP doesn't have the SATA drivers and won't be able to find SATA drives.

It's nothing major but kinda hard to find and figure out.

If you have XP SP2 or less, you must use compatibility mode (in BIOS) so that the OS can see the drive to be installed. Otherwise, it will not detect any drive; thus cannot be installed.
Once you installed it, immediately install the intel chipset support and intel matrix storage driver.

Another simpler way, extract the intel matrix storage driver (ICH7) (usually on \drivers\imsm - once extracted) and compiled with the XP disc you have (add drivers) using 3rd party applications such as NLite (http://www.nliteos.com/index.html). With that, you don't need to change to compatibility mode (leave it as AHCI) and the installation will be smooth. This method is the one I am using now.