Thanks again for your reply.

I received a new motherboard yesterday - Abit IP35 PRO XE - very nice it is too...

Unfortunately it does not resolve my issues (although it does fix my annoying USB boot issue!)

I still have problems with AHCI.

If I install the IDE drivers from the new iATKoS v7 disk I can run perfectly in IDE mode.

Just would like to know what's wrong with the AHCI mode.

Now the only thing I can think of is that it's the HDD's themselves.

I know there not faulty per say, because there working fine in IDE mode - *perhaps* they can't handle the "AHCI" throughput or something daft like that.

Both drives are identical you see - Two of my old 80Gb drives from an old RAID array. (same firmware model and everything)

I suppose I could create a partition on another drive I have and try that (new 1Gb WD)

As a side note - the RAID option on the iATKoS v7 disk - this says you can install to a RAID array - does this mean I can install to my main ICH9R RAID array, or does it mean the Apple soft array you can create from the install disk.

I want to be sure - because I don't want to lose the data on my RAID array (3x250Gb Hitachi's)

Thanks again,

Jon.