Enable AHCI after Windows 7 installation

Rockbottom · 27 Dec 2010 at 20:33

Hello

I have tried to enable AHCI on my system using the tutorial at http://www.windows7news.com/2010/05/25/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-7/

I have set the 'Start' value to '0' in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci and then rebooted my computer, gone into the BIOS and enabled AHCI, but when the computer tries to boot up I get the following error (white text on black screen):

Reboot and Select proper Boot Device
or Insert Boot Media is selected Boot device and press a key

So I can't get as far as getting back into Windows to let it install the AHCI driver.

My primary HDD is an OCZ Vertex II SSD and my motherboard is an ASUS M4A87TD EVO.

Any suggestions?

Cheers
Steve

hominid · 27 Dec 2010 at 20:47

I used that method and it worked for me, but then I've got a mechanical HD rather than a SSD. I did have to install some SATA drivers as it thought al my SATA devices were external so I could remove them with the remove hardware dialog, but after that all was ok.

Did you install windows 7 onto the ssd or copy a partition over from a previous install?

Rockbottom · 27 Dec 2010 at 20:49

hominid said:
Did you install windows 7 onto the ssd or copy a partition over from a previous install?

Fresh install of Windows 7 onto the SSD. The SSD is connected to my SATA 1 port btw. I also have 5 other mechanical SATA hard drives installed on SATA ports 2 - 6.

Cheers
Steve

Rockbottom · 28 Dec 2010 at 12:40

Is it possible my motherboard doesn't know which hard drive to boot from when I enable AHCI mode?

After enabling AHCI mode, I checked the hard drive boot priority section of the BIOS and it still references my hard drive as: IDE:OCZ-VERTEX-II

I have tried changing it to see what options there are, but there is no mention of AHCI there.

Any ideas?

DragonQ · 28 Dec 2010 at 13:08

Switching to AHCI usually messes up the boot order. You usually have to re-detect the drives in the BIOS and sort out the boot priority from scratch.

Rockbottom · 28 Dec 2010 at 14:21

DragonQ said:
Switch to AHCI usually messes up boot order. You usually have to re-detect the drives in the BIOS and sort out the boot priority from scratch.

Any idea how I re-detect the drives in the BIOS?

DragonQ · 28 Dec 2010 at 18:14

Should be an option to set all of your SATA ports to "not installed", then back to "automatically detect". Then remove all drives from the boot order and start again by selecting just your SSD.