BSOD when installing Vista SP1 on replaced HDD, T61p

Question

Hi all,
My hdd crashed last week, fortunatelly I was still able to backup most of data.
Yestarday I got new hdd, with preinstalled Vista Ultimate, but pretty old - from september 2008.
I started with refreshing drivers, which is now huge work comparing to use of TVSU (btw: Lenovo, please fix TVSU!!)
Then I did Windows Update, downloaded about 80 updates, 280MB. SP1 didn't show up though.
I took full SP1 and tried to install it, however after 3rd or 4th reboot it crashed with BSOD STOP error, ending with 07E.
There is no description of any kind, no names of drivers, etc.
This stop error seems to be quite generic and honestly I don't know where to start.
Any help appreciated.

Answer 1

There's a slightly easier way than slipstreaming.
The issue is that XP doesn't have driver support for the SATA AHCI controller on that system.  However, you can download that driver here:  http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-70477
You'll need to extract that and put it in the root of a floppy (yeah, a floppy... looking for the A: drive is hardcoded in to the XP install).
When you boot to the XP CD, press F6 when prompted (it'll say "Press F6 to install third-party SCSI controller" or something similar along the bottom).
Windows will load some files and eventually bring you to a screen with a couple of options.  It'll tell you your current controller is "<none>" and allow you to press S to specify a driver.  Once you do, it'll scan the A drive and load up the entries from the txtsetup.oem file you extracted from the driver.
The selection you want doesn't show up by default.  There aren't any scroll bars, but you can scroll through the list using the arrow keys.  You want "Intel(R) ICH9M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller" which is the 7th from the bottom.
Select that, Windows will load it, the install will continue and you'll be golden.
If you don't want to bother with scrolling, you can open the txtsetup.oem file and find this line (near the top):
 [Defaults]
scsi = iaStor_ICH8MEICH9ME
Change that to:
 [Defaults]
scsi = iaAHCI_ICH9MEM
And the proper controller will be highlighted by default so you don't have to arrow through the list.
If all of that is too much of a pain, you can go in to the BIOS under Config->SATA and change AHCI to Compatibility and load Windows w/o the IMSM driver.  Once Windows is loaded, you can install the driver and enable AHCI mode using the install.cmd file in the PREPARE directory of the driver linked above.
Hope this helps.
Full disclosure: Lenovo issues my paychecks.