Ironically enough, when I installed these drivers about a week ago they hosed my system too. I had a new video card coming anyways and reinstalled the AMD driver to put my 5770 back in until then. Got a BSOD about half way through, reboot lead to another one, then a corrupt windows install.

I had been with ATI/AMD since retiring my Voodoo 3, but I finally made the switch to Nvidia.

Somewhat related to this in terms of driver frustration.

http://richg42.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-truth-on-opengl-driver-quality.html

Can you guess which Vendor is which?

I'm pretty certain which is which.

"AMD has received feedback that some users are unable to install the Catalyst 14.4 driver on some motherboards with AMD chipsets. We have investigated the issue and have determined that it was caused by the AHCI driver component that was included with the driver package.

We have therefore removed the AHCI driver component from the driver package and will be providing it as a separate download.

If you were affected by this issue, we recommend you download and install this updated version of the driver."

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/integrated_win7-64.aspx

Make sure you uninstall the driver with DDU or the AMD uninstall utility before installing new drivers and never install new drivers on day one unless you're prepared to live on the edge.

Add: your rant is understandable, it's annoying when this happens, but ultimately it's your own fault. How many decades of experience do we already have? Don't install fundamental drivers until they have been tested in the field, if you want to be 100% sure.

I installed the 14.4 catalyst drivers the day they were released, and they worked 100% fine for me. But I did that knowing that I could screw up my system, so I went in with that knowledge.

So while the rant is understandable, because I know it sucks when things like this happens, the fault is your own.

Got the 14.4 installed with my new card. Yay! :D

Are you effin´ kidding me?!?

It´s NOT his own fault.

WHAT THE FRACK is a Graphics Card company fracking around with ACPI HARDDISK drivers, especially when they usually have a hard time getting their own damn graphic cards working right.

This is simply unacceptable.
Makes me glad that I ditched my AMD, if only I could be sure the NVidia "engineers" won´t get similar brainfarts in the future.

Not to mention the fact that such problems are what the Release Candidates and Beta versions are for. A release version is expected to be stable and reliable - that's the point of Release Candidates and Beta versions in the first place - to catch glaring bugs like this.

Makes me wonder what the point of the prolonged beta was in the first place if they weren't applying any feedback.

Graphics card company? Sure, they also build CPU's and chipsets (which includes SATA controllers), and have done so since long before they bought ATI. Why wouldn't AMD build SATA controller drivers?

I do question the decision to bundle them with the GPU drivers though.

Welcome to the internet, where it is always your own fault to update or install *anything*. Ever.

Every single piece of software can be faulty and it is only with time and experience that these faults - if they exist - can come to light. If you install anything the first week it is out, that's on you.

It is a mantra in IT to wait until new software has proven itself, because that's the way the world works. Even fucking Nvidia screws up.