how to install drupal with myisam and different collation
You can do during the installation or you can convert 

For the installation, before you launch the install.php, you need to edit the "/includes/databases/mysql/schema.inc file.

// Provide defaults if needed.
$table += array(
  'mysql_engine' =&gt; 'MyISAM',    //Changed from Innodb to MyISAM
  'mysql_character_set' =&gt; 'utf8',
   mysql_collation' =&gt; 'utf8_unicode_ci',  //Added the collation
);

$sql .= 'ENGINE = ' . $table['mysql_engine'] . ' DEFAULT CHARACTER SET ' . $table['mysql_character_set'] . ' COLLATE ' . $table['mysql_collation']; 




in case  you want to convert already created tables. put the site on maintenance mode and use phpmyadmin to convert the engines and collations