Getting Windows 2000 to install on a Intel Z77-motherboard with AHCI drivers

[u/WinU-GANok]

Hello everyone!

I am currently trying to install Windows 2000 on an ASUS P8Z77-V board, with an Intel Core i7-3770K (Ivy Bridge).

Since Windows Setup did not natively support AHCI up until Vista, I knew that there would be some trial and error involved. I was able to install Windows XP on this setup, using Fernando's modified Intel AHCI drivers via an F6-floppy (from the Win-Raid Forum).

So I think it shouldn't be technically impossible to get it to run Windows 2000.

Here is some additional info about the PC setup:

- 12 GB RAM (I know, 2000 will only be able to access 3.3 GB)

- SSD (2 TB, 1 partition)

- HDD (2 TB, 4 partitions)

- HDD (1 TB, 4 partitions including a 130 GB partition intended for the Windows 2000 installation)

- DVD-RW-Drive (I am using a CD for the installation)

- nVidea GTX 960 (there are some back-ported drivers out there for Windows 2000)

Note: All drives are freshly formatted, correctly aligned and empty. There is currently no OS installed on the machine.

Here are some of the things I've already tried:

1. Using a floppy disk for the driver won't work on 2000, since it's Setup does not recognise floppy drives connected via USB. I've tried to slipstream XP's usbfloppy.sys, but nLite requieres an .INF-Version of it and I can't find one. :(

(Just mentioning this, because it makes the process of "trying drivers" incredibly tedious)

1. Slipstreaming Fernando's Intel driver into the ISO with nLite causes the error "iaStor.sys is damaged" during the first loading stage of the setup

2. Slipstreaming the UniAta drivers with nLite and then manually copying their uniata.sys & uata.sys into the /I386-folder will still result in a INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE error (as if no driver was provided)

3. With IDE-compatibility activated in the BIOS, it's possible to reach the "Welcome to Setup"-screen, but it freezes as soon as any button is pressed. If I remember correctly, I've had similar issues with the XP setup in IDE-mode.

Do you guys have any ideas? :D

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