Cant boot in AHCI mode - please help

[eddyc]

HA YES ... SOLVED!

As with all the best computer problems there were two things causing the symptoms. When I finally did manage to successfully install the AHCI drivers the computer would not install windows to that drive because it was in SATA port 6, even though it was happily booting to that disk in the same port earlier.

When I moved the disk to SATA port 1 it worked.

Hells yes. Windows experience disk transfer rate 7.7.

Thanks so much to everyone for your help. Legends.

 

[saintdefender]

Flash Drives? Are they just normal USB sticks? How big do I need to install ACHI drivers? I have an SSD coming Tuesday you see and want to install windows on it just a bit worried about doing it now seeing the problems you have had to overcome!

 

[tuomoy]

If you set it back to IDE or compatibility then boot back into windows then install the latest AHCI chipset drivers, shut down and then change back into AHCI in bios again then boot from there. Windows installation should pick up the AHCI drive and boot fine.

 

[eddyc]

Flash Drives? Are they just normal USB sticks? How big do I need to install ACHI drivers? I have an SSD coming Tuesday you see and want to install windows on it just a bit worried about doing it now seeing the problems you have had to overcome!

Yes just a normal USB stick. It can be any size, I think the drivers are only a few KB.

I would have thought you will have no trouble. I think I was just unlucky / stupid.

Make sure it is plugged into SATA port 1 (I think probably any of the early ones will do).

You may not even need to fiddle around with the AHCI drive make disk business. Windows is supposed to have AHCI drivers built in. If you make sure that AHCI is enabled in BIOS when you install windows that should be all you have to do. If you cant install windows in AHCI mode then you will need to get the drivers off your motherboard disk, using the make disk utility.

Anyway if you run into any trouble then you have a whole forum to help

 

[saintdefender]

Yes just a normal USB stick. It can be any size, I think the drivers are only a few KB.

I would have thought you will have no trouble. I think I was just unlucky / stupid.

Make sure it is plugged into SATA port 1 (I think probably any of the early ones will do).

You may not even need to fiddle around with the AHCI drive make disk business. Windows is supposed to have AHCI drivers built in. If you make sure that AHCI is enabled in BIOS when you install windows that should be all you have to do. If you cant install windows in AHCI mode then you will need to get the drivers off your motherboard disk, using the make disk utility.

Anyway if you run into any trouble then you have a whole forum to help

Just letting you know it went incredibly smoothly, my computer picked up my SSD with ease (its in sata0 as you said) and it installed even easier, and now I have windows 7 on the SSD and I have configured a raid 0 with 2 x 1TB hard-drives which seem to be working as well!

So thanks for your help!

 

[eddyc]

Good stuff. Glad to hear it

 

[justintime2001]

Hi, follow these instructions to enable > ACHI.

1.Open Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci.
2.Right click on the Start registry DWORD and select Modify
3.Set the value to 0 and click OK
4.Now the Start setting should be set to 0
5.Reboot and enable the AHCI setting in your BIOS.

Sorry to jump the op's post. I have had the same problem and followed the instructions on this thread and my drives are now recognised by Windows7. The BIOS does'nt see the drives but I assume that is because it only lists IDE drives? However, like the op I noticed that booting takes ages with AHCI enabled but if I switch the BIOS back to IDE it quickens the boot.

2 questions really: Is this normal and will I cause any problems leaving the BIOS set at IDE instead of AHCI

Is there a way of speeding up the AHCI boot?

Appreciate advice from those who know these things please