Need Help: AHCI, IDE, and other fun stuff

[StrikeDaMic]

Hey guys

 

After having finally bought a new PC - the components for it, respectively - I am ready to run a dual-boot Vista 64bit / OSX86 machine.

 

Specs:

 

Motherboard: Asus P5Q (sound/LAN onboard)

CPU: Intel Q9550 Core 2 Quad @ 2.66 Ghz, FSB1333

RAM: Mushkin 2x2GB DDR2-800

HDD: 1x Seagate 500GB 16MB

GPU: Sapphire HD 4870 512MB

Optical: Samsung SATA DVD-Writer Combo Drive

 

I have partitioned the HDD to hold three partitions:

 

1. 350GB for Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit

2. ~30GB empty (will be FAT32 for sharing between the OSs)

3. ~120GB empty (will hold Kalyway 10.5.)

 

So I've installed Vista and set it up to my likes. Now I would like to install Kalyway.

 

I've tried a couple of times, it always crashed even before it reached the gray loading screen. Then I learned that it was because I had my SATA drives set to IDE. I entered the BIOS, set it to AHCI and gave it a go. It entered the OS X install routine correctly (though Express Gate and Windows didn't load anymore, or crash during startup, respectively). My USB mouse wasn't working though.

 

So here's my problem: I would like to dual boot Vista and OSx86. I heard horrible things about running Vista 64bit in AHCI mode, though - and for a clean setup, I'd probably have to re-install Vista for good.

 

Is there any failsafe way to do this? Are there bootloaders out there, that can set the disk mode according to what OS the user wants to load?

 

What's the best way? Setting the disk to AHCI whenever I want to boot OSx86 (and to IDE when I wanna boot Vista)?

 

Please help!

 

Thanks a lot in advance,

 

Strike