G'day,
I've been trying to (clean) install Windows 8 on my PC now for over two weeks now, and it's really getting old.
You can see here that I've outlined my issue to the Windows Technical Community, which has resulted in... absolutely no help at all. http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-windows_install/windows-8-clean-install-fails-before-country/64229d0a-0220-45a9-bdc6-c41062df8a75
Tl;dr? Yeah, me too. Basically, I've shrunk the HDD, it's working (I'm on that PC on XP).
I've put both the x64 and the x86 DVD's, AND an another HDD with W8 installed on it from my test machine, and they ALL Fail to load. (I get the slanty windows logo, and after about 10 seconds BOOM. Sad face error screen.)
I really don't want to have to remove the video card, or the unevenly/not partnered DIMM in the 2nd Memory channel - because the case is .. stupid, and in an awkward spot, but I'm running out of ideas!
PS.
I tried turning on ACHI tonight. All that resulted in was XP wigging out about new drivers & explorer.exe crashing. Fun times! :(