Unable to install - reboot repeatedly (HP ProBook 6540b)

I would like to get 64 bit BSD installed on HP ProBook 6540b laptop, but when booting with the install disk it just reboot repeatedly.

Did do a BIOS upgrade to Aug 2010 release, hoping it will help, but it didn't

On other forums I've read about scsi/fake scsi setting which led me to change the BIOS setting of AHCI to IDE, which surprisingly worked, booting bsd installation disk works.. but this is not an option since besides performance, the OS'es on other partitions have to be reinstalled which is not something i would like to do if it can be avoided.

I've tried the following installation images: DesktopBSD-1.7-amd64, FreeBSD-8.1-RELEASE-amd64-dvd1, PCBSD8.1-x64-DVD. But all 3 fail with exactly the same behaviour which is probably because all of them is FreeBSD.

I've chosen 64bit version - It should be OK because arch linux 64 works without an issue on this laptop. see flags:

Code:
~(master) $ cat /proc/cpuinfo|grep ^flags|uniq
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx 
rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 
sse4_2 popcnt lahf_lm ida arat tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid
~(master) $

As per some BSD forum/blog I've tried modifying /boot/loader.conf in the installation iso by adding line:
Code:
ahci_load="YES"

But also that did not seem to make any difference

I am at a loss of ideas to try out. Any suggestions & advise will be greatly appreciated
 
AHCI to IDE

Hi

For what it is worth, there is a post regarding the same issue for the 4520s.

That poster was able to keep his SUSE partition when making the change from AHCI to IDE. I have no idea if this helps at all... but then you were not getting any input from anyone else, so I thought I may mention it...
 
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