HP Compaq 6200 Pro DownGrade to XP AHCI Driver

I ran into this one recently where a customer wanted to downgrade these new machines to Windows XP since their company currently does not have any plans to migrate from it.  Below are the steps I had to take in order to install Windows XP and then setup the AHCI driver afterwards

The main thing I had to do was to put the SATA controller in IDE mode first in order to get Windows XP to install.  The can be done by pressing ESC or F9 on the PC when it first boots. 

Here is the step by step process to do that:

1. After Windows XP is installed, install the chipset driver first & reboot:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/S​oftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=1...

The following steps are used for installing AHCI drivers in Windows XP operating system installed using the IDE mode.

2. Download AHCI driver from the HP Driver site.


3. Right-click the My Computer icon, click Manage, select Device Manager

4. Click the + symbol beside IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers so see all of the hardware devices.

5. You will find the Intel native SATA storage controller driver installed.

6. Right-click  the Serial ATA storage 4 Port controller listed, and click Update Driver .

7. In Welcome to the Hardware Update Wizard, select No, not this time. Click Next .

8. Select Install from a list or specific location (Advanced) . Click Next

9. Select Don't search I will choose the driver to install . Click Next

10. Click Have Disk

11. Click Browse

12. Select location where you saved ACHI drivers.

13. Select iaAHCI.inf

14. Click Open

15. This will list several SATA AHCI Controllers. From this list, select the Intel(R) Desktop/Workstation/Server Express Chipset SATA AHCI Controller. Click Next.

16. The Update Driver Warning will be shown. Click Yes.

17. The driver will install, and completing the Hardware update Wizard appears. Click Finish

18. You can find the updated controller in the device manager.

19. During restart boot to the BIOS setup utility . Go back to your device configurations sub menu and change the SATA Mode back to ACHI, save settings there (F10) and upon exit, save changes and reboot.

Now, the SATA driver is successfully installed and the desktop will boot into Windows with SATA Device Mode set to AHCI.