500 Server Error, Clean URL's and XAMPP

I am running Drupal on XAMPP which is running on my mac.

Pre-installation I was getting 500 Server Error's on every page I loaded within the Drupal folder. I removed the .htaccess file which comes in the main folder and this cleaned up the 500 Server Errors.

However I am now having problems with clean URL's. The XAMPP server comes with mod_rewrite enabled which leads me to think that the problem is with the .htaccess file.

I have changed it to

#
# Apache/PHP/Drupal settings:
#

ErrorDocument 404 /index.php

# Various rewrite rules.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine on

  # If your site can be accessed both with and without the prefix www.
  # you can use one of the following settings to force user to use only one option:
  #
  # If you want the site to be accessed WITH the www. only, adapt and uncomment the following:
  # RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.example\.com$ [NC]
  # RewriteRule .* http://www.example.com/ [L,R=301]
  #
  # If you want the site to be accessed only WITHOUT the www. , adapt and uncomment the following:
  # RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^example\.com$ [NC]
  # RewriteRule .* http://example.com/ [L,R=301]


  # Modify the RewriteBase if you are using Drupal in a subdirectory and
  # the rewrite rules are not working properly.
  #RewriteBase /drupal

  # Rewrite old-style URLs of the form 'node.php?id=x'.
  #RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  #RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  #RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^id=([^&]+)$
  #RewriteRule node.php index.php?q=node/view/%1 [L]

  # Rewrite old-style URLs of the form 'module.php?mod=x'.
  #RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  #RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  #RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^mod=([^&]+)$
  #RewriteRule module.php index.php?q=%1 [L]

  # Rewrite current-style URLs of the form 'index.php?q=x'.
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]
</IfModule>

As shown in this thread http://drupal.org/node/79235

This doesn't cause a server error but I am unable to use Clean URL's. Is there anything which is in the original .htaccess but not in this one which would cause clean URL's to not function correctly?