Precision 380 - AHCI/SATA problems installing Windows XP/Server 2003

System arrived with WinXP pre-loaded, with hard drive in single partition.

 

I Wanted to install WinXP x64; downloaded proper drivers for AHCI/RAID to floppy (Intel chipset ID utility reports back as 955x Express; Memory controller 82955x; and I/O 82801GH - ICH7DH)

 

Proceeded w/ install; deleted all partitions (including diagnostic) on hard drive and re-partitioned as 2 NTFS partions (10 GB & 28GB). Only BIOS setting changed were to add floppy drive.

 

Booted from CD; at beginning of install hit the F6 routine to load the AHCI driver (which it loaded iastor.sys) after selecting the ICH7DR AHCI driver (there was not a DH option - this was the latest version available)

 

Windows setup proceeded to load all the files and reboot; BIOS was set to boot from hard drive. After a few seconds, error message appeared that "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem"

 

Tried to install the following OS with the BIOS setting on the hard drives (using what was thought to be the correct AHCI driver from Intel Matrix Manager for each OS):

 

Win XP x64                AHCI  failed
Win XP x64                RAID  failed
Win XP x64                IDE  failed

 

Win XP SP2               AHCI  failed
Win XP SP2               RAID  failed
Win XP SP2               IDE  success

 

Win 2K3 server stnd   AHCI  failed
Win 2K3 server stnd   RAID  failed
Win 2K3 server stnd   IDE  failed

The diagnostic disk shipped w/ the system had AHCI drivers - but at the F6 option, only came up with ICH6 options. I tried using this driver and it too failed.

 

The system originally was running Win XP SP2 with BIOS in AHCI mode - I can't get it to load in any other mode than IDE.

 

Suggestions?