Bios setting for hard drive/SATA?

Xee · 8 Apr 2009 at 14:59

Have a "Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AMD 780G" and a Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB installed running Windows 7.

Do I want to be running the OnChip SATA Type in "Native IDE" or "AHCI" mode? At the moment its running fine in the Native IDE mode, but it wont boot Windows if I choose AHCI mode. Am I missing out on performance or features running native IDE? Its just something that has been bugging me for a while.

From bios manual:

Native IDE: Allows the SATA controller to operate in Native IDE mode. (Default)
Enable Native IDE mode if you wish to install operating systems that
support Native mode, e.g. Windows XP.

AHCI: Configures the SATA controller to AHCI mode. Advanced Host Controller
Interface (AHCI) is an interface specification that allows the storage driver to
enable advanced Serial ATA features such as Native Command Queuing
and hot plug.

Ben M · 8 Apr 2009 at 15:01

Xee said:
At the moment its running fine in the Native IDE mode, but it wont boot Windows if I choose AHCI mode.

Err... One works, and the other doesn't, and you're asking which to use?

rpstewart · 8 Apr 2009 at 15:14

There's next to no performance to be gained by using AHCI, certainly not enough to justify the effort in getting an existing install to boot in AHCI mode (and it ain't much effort!).

Admiral Huddy · 8 Apr 2009 at 15:20

Iagree with rpstewart here .. If you do choose to go along with the AHCI, you'll need to install the drivers when Windows starts (f6 to install drivers when promoted) otherwise you'll get a system crash, which is most likely the error you are getting.

Xee · 8 Apr 2009 at 15:38

I see, so if I want to enable AHCI now, should I do this?

To resolve this issue, enable the AHCI driver in the registry before you change the SATA mode of the boot drive. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Exit all Windows-based programs.
2. Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
3. If you receive the User Account Control dialog box, click Continue.
4. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
5. In the right pane, right-click Start in the Name column, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
7. On the File menu, click Exit to close Registry Editor.
8. Change bios setting to AHCI

Also if I had enabled AHCI mode in bios prior to installing Windows 7, windows would have enabled AHCI by default?

Xee · 8 Apr 2009 at 19:42

Well tried the above and it worked just fine