Load AHCI Driver for Windows Vista

Step 1 - Place Windows Vista DVD in your dvd-rom drive and start your PC. Windows Vista will start to boot up and you will get the following progress bar.


Step 2 - The next screen allows you to setup your language, time and currency format, keyboard or input method. Choose your required settings and click next to continue.


Step 3 - The next screen allows you to install or repair Windows Vista. Since we are doing a fresh install we will click on "install now".


Step 4 - You can now type the product key that came with your Windows vista.


Step 5 - If you do not enter the product key you can still proceed with the installation in which case Windows will ask you which version of Vista you have purchased. Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate, Business etc. Select the version you have purchased and click next.


Step 6 - Tick "I accept the licence terms" and press next.


Step 7 - Choose the type of installation you want to perform. You will notice that upgrade option is disabled as we have booted from the DVD-R. Therefore we can only select Custom (advanced) option which basicly installs a clean copy of Windows from scratch.


Step 8 - Choose where you would like to install Windows Vista. If you have a new upartitioned hard drive you would get your hard drive listed as shown on the image below. If have have an old hard drive with data or other partitions it will show up as logical drives. You can select the drive options (advaced) to format, delete, or create new partions.


Step 9 - If you noticed, there will be a load driver button next to drive option button. To install the AHCI driver you need to click this button and then select the appropriate driver file for your computer. Please make sure that if your computer is using 32 bit, select the x86 driver while if it using 64 bit, select x64. Vista will hide the inconvenience and wrong driver for your computer. Then vista will automatically run for installation.

Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) Problems

The Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is a programming-specification which defines the operation of Serial ATA host-controllers (also known as host bus adapters) in a non implementation-specific manner. The specification describes a system memory structure for computer hardware vendors in order to exchange data between host system memory and the attached storage-devices. AHCI offers software developers and hardware designers a standard method for detecting, configuring, and programming SATA/AHCI adapters. AHCI is separate from the Serial ATA-II standard, although it exposes SATA's advanced capabilities (such as hot-plugging and native command queuing) such that host-systems can utilize them. Lately, several problems occur due to AHCI

• Enabling AHCI in a system's BIOS will cause a 0x7B Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) STOP error (INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE) on installations of Windows XP and Windows Vista where AHCI/RAID drivers for that system's chipset are not installed; i.e., boot failure.
• For Intel chipsets (for example, Intel ICH9) drivers are available from either an OEM motherboard or computer manufacturer. For the Intel versions, the driver must be loaded before loading the OS (by pressing F6 as setup starts, then using the floppy disk when prompted). The Intel drivers will work for both XP and Vista. Also, in the case of ICH9, an unsupported method to enable AHCI on ICH9 is available.
• When attempting to install Windows XP or a previous version on an AHCI-enabled system, setup will fail with the error message "setup could not detect hard disk drive..."
• Windows Vista installation process may take several hours on a system that uses an AMD/ATI SB600 Series chipset operating in AHCI mode

In order to stop the Blue Screen of Death reappeared when installing Windows XP, first you need to disable the AHCI on BIOS setup. This can be done by pressing F2 button then at the BIOS system configurations select IDE mode for hardisk before you installing Windows XP.

Intel Atom; A Brilliant Nanotechnology

"This is our smallest processor built with the world's smallest transistors. The Intel® Atom™ processor is based on an entirely new design, built for low power and designed specifically for a new wave of Mobile Internet Devices and simple, low-cost PC's. This small wonder is a fundamental new shift in design, small yet powerful enough to enable a big Internet experience on these new devices. We believe it will unleash new innovation across the industry."

– Intel Executive Vice President Sean Maloney

Newly designed from the ground up, 45nm Intel® Atom™ processors pack an astounding 47 million transistors on a single chip measuring less than 26mm², making them Intel's smallest and lowest power processors. All this while delivering the power and performance you need for full Internet capabilities. Intel Atom is the brand name for a line of x86 and x86-64 CPUs (or microprocessors) from Intel, previously code-named Silverthorne and Diamondville processors, designed for a 45 nm CMOS process and intended for use in ultra-mobile PCs, smart phone and other portable and low-power applications. Atom CPUs are surprising for more than one reason: they have modern functions (EM64T, SSSE3, etc.) grafted onto an older architecture The Atom is the first in-order x86 since the Pentium. Power management and fabrication costs are the two imperatives Intel seems to have been guided by, at the expense (with no attempt made to hide it) of performance. So, no, don’t expect a competitor to Core 2 Duo.

• Get a new range of power-efficient devices with excellent performance enabled by all new hafnium-infused 45nm high-k silicon technology

• Increase energy efficiency in smaller more compact designs with a thermal design power specification ranging from less than 1W to 2.5 watts for mobile devices

• Extend battery life in select devices with an incredibly low idle and average power allowing the device to stay powered on while also conserving energy

Produced	2008–present
Common manufacturer(s)	Intel
Max CPU clock	800 MHz to 1.866 GHz
FSB speeds	400 MT/s to 533 MT/s
Min feature size	0.045 µm
Instruction set	x86, x86-64
Cores	1, 2
Package(s)	441-ball µFCBGA
Core name(s)	Silverthorne, Diamondville

Windows 7

Windows 7 (formerly codenamed Blackcomb and Vienna) is the next release of Microsoft Window, an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, Tablet PCs, notebooks and media center PCs. Microsoft stated in 2007 that it was planning Windows 7 development for a three-year time frame starting after the release of its predecessor, Windows Vista, but that the final release date would be determined by product quality. As of January 2009, Windows 7 is expected to be officially released in the third quarter of 2009.

Unlike its predecessor, Windows 7 is intended to be an incremental upgrade to Vista, with the goal of being fully compatible with device drivers, applications, and hardware which Windows Vista is already compatible with. Presentations given by the company in 2008 have focused on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows Shell with a new taskbar, a home networking system called HomeGroup, and performance improvements. Some applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows, most notably Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, are no longer included with the operating system; they are instead offered separately (free of charge) as part of the Windows Live Essentials suite.

Until now, the company has been uncharacteristically secretive about its new OS; over the past few months, Microsoft has let on that the taskbar will undergo a number of changes, and that many bundled applications would be unbundled and shipped with Windows Live instead. There have also been occasional screenshots of some of the new applets like Calculator and Paint. Now that the covers are finally off, the scale of the new OS becomes clear. The user interface has undergone the most radical overhaul and update since the introduction of Windows 95 thirteen years ago.

It's important to note what Windows 7 isn't. Windows 7 will not contain anything like the kind of far-reaching architectural modifications that Microsoft made with Windows Vista. Vista brought a new display layer and vastly improved security, but that came at a cost: a significant number of (badly-written) applications had difficulty running on Vista. Applications expecting to run with Administrator access were still widespread when Vista was released, and though many software vendors do a great job, there are still those that haven't updated or fixed their software. Similarly, at its launch many hardware vendors did not have drivers that worked with the new sound or video subsystems, leaving many users frustrated (Vista usually got a problem with “System not responding”).

We will wait and see either Windows 7 is better than Windows Vista or not