Please Help: Problems Reformatting/Clean Installing Vista (Specifically AHCI Driver I think)

Hi I own a dell XPS m1330 and I've been trying to reformat/clean install my Vista 32 bit Home Premium by following http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=157838

Now I've already done this like three times already in the past and it's worked fine, but for some reason I can't get everything to work right now. I've followed each step exactly, except I deleted my MediaDirect partition and extended my C drive partition (but I also tried NOT doing this in case this was the problem and it didn't solve anything).

My main problem I think is that the AHCI driver is not being installed correctly. This has led to blue screens on startup, my PC being randomly frozen when svchost.exe runs (when I got as far as installing Comodo it prompted me to allow this and when I clicked allow my computer froze everytime). I'm also getting these "Windows logon user interface host has stopped working" errors on startup and have no idea what it is or does.

I followed the readme and determined I am in AHCI mode, and according to the readme * 6. VERIFYING INSTALLATION OF THE SOFTWARE:

6.1 Verifying Have Disk, F6, or Unattended Installation:
depending on your system configuration, refer to the
appropriate sub-topic below:

6.1b Systems Configured for AHCI Mode:

1. On the Start menu:
1a. For Windows* 2000, select Settings and then select
Control Panel.
1b. For Windows* XP or later operating systems,
select Control Panel.
2. Open on the 'System' applet (you may first
have to select 'Switch to Classic View').
3. Select the 'Hardware' tab in Windows* XP or Windows*
Server 2003.
4. Select the 'Device Manager' button
5. Expand the 'IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers' entry
6. Right-click on 'Intel(R) 82801GR SATA AHCI Controller'
This same procedure can also be used for systems using
the 'Intel(R) 82801HR/HH/HO SATA AHCI Controller',
the 'Intel(R) 631xESB/632xESB SATA AHCI Controller',
the 'Intel(R) 82801GBM SATA AHCI Controller',
the 'Intel(R) 82801GH SATA AHCI Controller' and
the 'Intel(R) 82801FR SATA AHCI Controller'.
7. Select 'Properties'
8. Select the 'Driver' tab
9. Select the 'Driver Details' button
10. If the 'iaStor.sys' file is displayed, the installation
was successful.

For step 6. Right-click on 'Intel(R) 82801GR SATA AHCI Controller', I don't have this exact same one but mine is "Intel(R) ICH8M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller" and when I go to 'Driver Details' I see "C:\Windows\system32\DRIVERS\iaStor.sys" so that makes me THINK the AHCI driver installed correctly.

However, for the next substep:

6.2 Verifying Windows Automated Installer* or 'Package for
the Web' Installations:

1. Click 'Start'.
2. Find the 'Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager'
program group.
3. Select the 'Intel(R) Matrix Storage Console' entry
4. The 'Intel(R) Matrix Storage Console' application should
launch.
5. If this application does not launch, the Intel(R)
Matrix Storage Manager driver was not installed
properly and setup needs to be run.

This is where I have nothing. I specifically remember that when I clean installed in the past, I saw the 'Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager' folder in program files, but I've reformatted like 5 times today already and each time it's NEVER there. I don't understand why and I think that's why I've been blue screening and my computer keeps freezing.


I've tried extracting the AHCI driver that I've downloaded here: http://support.dell.com/support/dow...1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=41&fileid=277416
onto both an external HD and a USB and then loading it clicking next blah blah and everything seems right except it doesn't show up in programs. I just don't get it because I did the EXACT same thing in the past and it was always there.

At the moment I've spent like 12 hours trying to figure this out. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

 

hmm try booting in Vista using ATA Mode instead of AHCI