I just wanted to thank everyone for their help. Looks like I got lucky and found someone at Dell who speaks english and knew what they were talking about.. It seems that the CD that comes with the PC has all the necessary drivers for setup to run properly..

would not having sata drivers set up have any impact on game graphics?

Newbie Chiming in here -
I just got what appears to be the identical Dell (XPS 400 with the 160GB Seagate) as the one vinnypimp mentions here. I also ATTEMPTED to install XPpro from a bootable CD.
Two different things have been happening
first it will go through the first screen where it's loading drivers etc.
Then it either gets to the:
"Install Windows or Repair Windows press enter"etc. screen press enter
and the keyboard becomes non responsive
or
I get the BSoD with PCI.sys error.
I originally thought it might have been a problem with the PCI-EX video card so I yanked it and used a PCI video card (I did make the noted change in the bios)
But to no avail.
is this an SATA drivers issue as mentioned in some of the posts above?
I don't have a floppy installed but I am sure I could go in my pile o' parts and jury rig something- :giddy:
Any assistance would be much appreciated.