I'm at a loss here, gang. Got a Dell Studio XPS with Vista preinstalled on SATA0, and I want to install Snow Leopard on a separate drive SATA2. So step one: enable AHCI in my BIOS, right? But I have been through every single menu in my BIOS, and there is nary a mention of AHCI anywhere.
I have updated the registry as described here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976
Doesn't change anything.
If I try iBoot-Supported with current BIOS settings, I get stuck at "Still waiting for root device" (and yes, my DVD drive is SATA). If I try iBoot-NVIDIA (my graphics card is "NVIDIA GeForce GT 220") I get "NVEnabler: DEBUG Model found: Unknown nVidia card". If I try iBoot-NVIDIA with the -x flag I get "Still waiting for root device".
I have done every recommendation in the troubleshooting post: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=524 including upgrading the BIOS to the latest available from Dell.
Still, the only somewhat-relevant BIOS setting I can find is Advanced Chipset Features > SATA Mode, which accepts only ATA or RAID. Some posts here and there casually mention using RAID instead of AHCI, and the wikipedia article for AHCI says that RAID mode "also enables AHCI", so I tried it, but the iBoot install still fails same as above, and moreover I can't boot Vista... when I try to boot Vista I end up at the Intel Matrix Storage Manager where it says RAID Volumes: None Defined, and then lists my two drives as "Non-RAID Disk". I have an option to "Create RAID Volume", which I guess I could do.. format my OSX destination drive as RAID0 and then try iBoot?? Does that seem like the right strategy?
And if so, how am I going to get Vista to work again afterward? Can I set my BIOS back to ATA after the OSX install?
BTW: before each iBoot attempt, I power down, unplug the Vista drive, and plug the OSX destination drive into the blue SATA0 port. So even with Vista completely out of the picture I can't get anywhere!