Re: @shufflemoomin
"With the correct Intel or AMD AHCI driver you install to the correct IDE controller"
You can't really do that, since as I said, in IDE mode (the AMD hardware at least) has a different PCI device ID than in AHCI mode and therefore trying to install the appropriate drives only gets you "no new drivers could be found" - the .inf file is simply not targeted at the IDE-mode device IDs. The only way to get it to work is to copy the .sys manually into system32/drivers and manually create the relevant registry entries so the .sys is picked up on boot once you switch to AHCI. THEN you can install the "new hardware" promptly detected by XP since the right hardware PCI ID is now visible.
Anyway, I forgot to mention the kicker in this whole kaboodle - while both Win7 and WinXP had to be babied around carefully to make the transition, the boot manager I use to dual boot them (the Linux BURG) needed no change whatsoever and booted the newly-AHCI disk without ever batting an eye...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
