Error installing XP Home on NP2096 *AHCI error"

[kkahuna]

After I successfully (i thought) installed XP home on my son's new sager last night, i rebooted and got a black screen "ACHI TOOLS"
I have a choice between disabling and enabling AHCI mode.
Last night, I chose "enable", then the blue screen of death. screen keeps asking for A drive, which laptop doesn't have.
i went back to SAGER and they checked HD and helped me reinstall XP (i brought CD). SAGER support is now closed. any ony one out there who can walk me thru this? son is in midterms now and stuck in library b/c his laptop died on monday.

thanks!
mom

[Woody]

AHCI stands for "Advanced Host Controller Interface" which is part of the SATA specification. It offers certain features primarily for hot swap ability but it's not necessary when using a single drive. If you already installed Windows XP and then enable AHCI you will get a hardware error and will be unable to boot. If you plan on installing XP on an AHCI enabled drive you will need to install the AHCI drivers from a floppy disk prior to installing Windows.

The best solution is not to enable AHCI and to use IDE emulation mode for installing Windows XP on a single drive. This feature can be enabled or disabled in the BIOS menu. There is no real performance advantage with AHCI and in some situations it may actually reduce performance.

[powerpack]

I agree with Woody 100% and 110% as the way to address the curent situation. Advanced Host Controller Interface (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface) is not fully supported out of the box by XP. And the problems you are having are normal. Mid Terms is not the time to learn the work arounds.

Also as Woody said "hot-plugging (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot-plugging)" is one of the features. So is native command queuing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Command_Queuing) are these even needed by you?

Follow the 1st link will explain in more detail what you are facing.

Good luck!