Let's start with a fun little story.

One weekend a few weeks back, I decided to create a Vista x64 Ultimate partition on my Macbook. I'd always wanted to at least try Vista to see if it was something I could live with, or maybe even enjoy. I figured if I was going to do it, I would do it all the way and go Ultimate using the 64 bit architecture. This was quite the daunting task seeing how Apple didn't release the 64 bit drivers to anyone but NEW Mac Pro owners! What is that crap! Anyhow. After reading numerous posts, I finally found the bootcamp64 install and finished up a nice and I am pleased to say "reliable" Vista x64 install.

With my new position, I was able to negotiate the takeover of a co-worker's old desktop for my own testing purposes :). With my success in Vista x64, I decided to re-pave the desktop and let it run Ultimate x64. Simple easy install, no problems, and I was up and running in about an hour.

Ran into a small problem though. The main purpose of this box was to run WAST (Microsoft Web Application Stress Tool) Tests. However, WAST wouldn't install on the x64 box. BUMMER! So after reading a few blog posts, I concluded that maybe 32 bit Vista Ultimate would be better, so I re-paved the box again with that. I copied the missing assembly over after reading this post, WAST started up and I thought I was in business.

After running numerous tests, I realized that something wasn't right and found that my Vista WAST was only running about 1/25 of what my XP WAST was. WEIRD! So, after a discussion with my boss we decided re-paving one last time with XP SP2 would be the most beneficial option. JOY!

Here's where the fun begins!

I started with finding my XPSP2 cd and tryed to run it in Vista. No such luck. Vista doesn't let you downgrade to an older OS. Crap if you ask me.

So I booted to the disk, only to find that the XP disk couldn't detect any hard disks! What now!

I eventually resorted to installing the hard disk as a slave in a second computer, but for some reason, I was unable to get the drive running. **BIG SHRUG and HEAD SCRATCH**

DING!!! The light goes off...

I'd used Vista the first time to pave a Vista install, why not use the Vista disk utilities to pave it again, but then quit the install process, and boot into the XPSP2 disk again. This is where I'm at now (65% formatted, thus the free time to blog). So I will let everyone know how it goes.

[UPDATE]

Turns out the problem isn't because of Vista when booting off of the XP SP2 disk. Because AHCI was enabled, the XP SP2 disk is unable to see any of the drives because is doesn't have the compatible drivers for such a setup. Disabling AHCI in the BIOS and rebooting seems to have corrected the problem, and I am now installing XP! YIPPEE!!