Cant boot in AHCI mode - please help

eddyc

eddyc

eddyc

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13 Nov 2009
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Hi guys,

I could really do with some help. I have the spec in my sig. Except I have just bought a 60GB Vertex 2e to replace my old ssd. SSDs work faster I believe if you set BIOS to AHCI mode rather than IDE mode.

But after a clean install of win 7 I cannot boot in AHCI. I have tried the Registry edit on the microsoft website.

Is there anything else I can do?
 
was ahci enabled in the bios before you started the fresh install ?

sometimes also you need to put in third party drivers for ahci/raid on the screen were you choose which hard drive you want to use...you can get these from your mobo cd and put them on a flash drive
 
No, IDE was enabled when I did the install. I tried to have ahci enabled but the install would not start.

If I can find the drivers on my mobo cd and drag them onto a flash drive, what do I do then?

Thanks very much for your help :)
 
have that flash drive in when you load windows dvd and at the screen that allows you to load drivers, load them.

When you say the reg edit from microsoft, do you mean the fixit tool? When I did that on my laptop as I was too lazy to find the drivers, I turned it on, booted, did a windows update and then it failed to boot, and I had to run it about 3 times in total, as I assume windows update was updating something to do with the storage stuff and cocking up the fix. So try running the tool again :)
 
the drivers are on the cd...under make a disk i think

achi needs to be enabled for the install the once you get to the choose disk screen

you want to click advanced then drivers...have your flash drive with drivers plugged

in and choose it from the menu....it will see drivers on the flash drive then install them

and carry on the installation....
 
Still no good. So I found what I think are the drivers on my mobo CD.

I opened the cd to view the files and went:

Drivers\RAID\Driver\Win 7\AHCI\Win7x64\amdsata.sys

I copied those to an external hard drive (did not have stick to hand). Rebooted the comp and entered BIOS. Set mode to AHCI. The comp failed to boot. Inserted Win 7 cd and let it load the files. Then pressed repair. Then pressed load drivers. I selected the drivers from the hdd and it said it was installing them. Then it said 'installation failed'.

Gutted.

Any more ideas?

Thanks so much for the help by the way.
 
Last edited:
It worked for me as follows:
1) I originally installed Win 7 on my SSD with it set to IDE.
2) I changed Win7 to AHCI via the registry fix
3) I changed the BIOS to AHCI.
4) Restart the computer and let it repair itself (might have had to put the Win7 disk in, but can't remember)

Tbh, SSDs are plenty fast to start with and I haven't noticed any performance increase with the switch to AHCI. In fact my BIOS takes an extra 5 seconds to boot up invoking the AHCI controller :(
 
Tonester007 said:
It worked for me as follows:
1) I originally installed Win 7 on my SSD with it set to IDE.
2) I changed Win7 to AHCI via the registry fix
3) I changed the BIOS to AHCI.
4) Restart the computer and let it repair itself (might have had to put the Win7 disk in, but can't remember)
Click to expand...

Just tried exactly that. No good. Seems really odd.

Thanks for all your help guys.
 
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.
 
OLDPHART said:
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.
Click to expand...

The start value was already 0 in there :confused:. Nice try though, thanks
 
you didnt answer my question of did you just update the registry or use the microsoft fix it tool. Also, do you have the ahci drivers for your board installed? Some intel boards only work if you install the intel rst drivers etc (well, one I used did). Not sure on amd equivalent though.
 
Ch3m1c4L said:
you didnt answer my question of did you just update the registry or use the microsoft fix it tool. Also, do you have the ahci drivers for your board installed? Some intel boards only work if you install the intel rst drivers etc (well, one I used did). Not sure on amd equivalent though.
Click to expand...

Sorry. I have now tried both updating the registry directly and also the fix it tool. I did as you suggested and tried the fix it tool several times, making sure that there were no windows updates.

I am not really sure if I have the ahci drivers installed. When I tried to install them from the windows recovery screen i got an error. I have tried installing them from the device manager as well but that just seems to screw everything up! After I do that it will not even boot in IDE mode and I have to run recovery to be able to get back in again!
 
thats weird. the MS ones are standard, its only board ones that will vary, is there something like the intel rst driver, but for amd?
 
hi eddy...the way im reading your earlier post was you found the drivers on the cd in a file.....this might be the problem as you need to make a disc(or flashdrive) the mobo cd will have a header called make a disc in which it once clicked asks what drivers your looking for and what operating system there going on...it then proceds to create these drivers on the chosen media...... take these once made and do a fresh install on the ssd...no repair...if it doesnt see the drivers when you get to the hdd screen and chose advanced/drivers..... then tell it to look on your choosen media and if installed correctly it will see them...but you then need to select them by high lighting and tell it to install them....at this point if you have ahci enabled in the bios your good to go..
 
cammy5477 said:
hi eddy...the way im reading your earlier post was you found the drivers on the cd in a file.....this might be the problem as you need to make a disc(or flashdrive) the mobo cd will have a header called make a disc in which it once clicked asks what drivers your looking for and what operating system there going on...it then proceds to create these drivers on the chosen media...... take these once made and do a fresh install on the ssd...no repair...if it doesnt see the drivers when you get to the hdd screen and chose advanced/drivers..... then tell it to look on your choosen media and if installed correctly it will see them...but you then need to select them by high lighting and tell it to install them....at this point if you have ahci enabled in the bios your good to go..
Click to expand...

Ah yes. You are right. I have not tried that yet. Dont seem to be able to make it work though. I think I am being really dim but the make disk utility asks for a destination and it says 'no disk found'. I only have one CD drive on my desktop. How can I run the make disk utility off the CD and also put the necessary files onto the disk? :(
 
eddyc said:
Ah yes. You are right. I have not tried that yet. Dont seem to be able to make it work though. I think I am being really dim but the make disk utility asks for a destination and it says 'no disk found'. I only have one CD drive on my desktop. How can I run the make disk utility off the CD and also put the necessary files onto the disk? :(
Click to expand...

hi eddy
i always use a flash drive to do it....can you not get hold of one to use for this process...there pretty cheap to buy mate....after that you should have no problem

ps ahci is worth doing....on ide my x25m gets 7.4 wei rated on ahci it gets 7.7
 
So I finally found my flash drive :o

I installed the drivers using the make disk utility. I then rebooted and went into AHCI mode. Then inserted the windows disk. Then chose a clean install of windows and got taken to the page where you choose which drive to install to. I selected my ssd but get a message saying that 'windows cannot be installed to the disk 0 partition 1'. I assume this is because I dont have the AHCI drivers installed yet.

So I click Load driver and point to my flash drive. The driver seems to install correctly. but I still have the 'windows cannot be installed to the disk 0 partition 1' message. Cant get any further.

If I try and press next anyway the message changes to: 'setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition. See the setup log files for more information'.

Oh god...!

Any other ideas guys? I am pretty nearly ready to give up :mad:
 
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