AHCI

[rahamk]

I just installed a ocz vertex 2 into my computer, how do i make sure that the ssd is set to AHCI? And if it is not how do i set it? Thanks in advance- kyle

 

[WyomingKnott]

In almost all cases, AHCI mode is controlled in the BIOS, by switching the SATA controller between AHCI / IDE / RAID modes.

If you switch the modes of existing disk drives, including your OS drive, you may not be able to boot. This is because the AHCI drivers are different from the IDE drivers, and if your OS was installed in IDE mode it will start to boot, get to a point where it tries to use the drivers to read the OS drive, and fail.

Some questions:
What OS are you running, on which drive?
Are you installing Win7 on the SSD, or using it for some other purpose?
What motherboard do you have? Mine requires that all SATA drives be in IDE or AHCI mode; some are more forgiving and allow port-by-port settings.

Edit: OK, you set up your member configuration and you have a Gigabyte AM3 AMD 880G. Section 5-1 of your manual discusses setting the SATA ports for the two controllers; in a brief look I only saw IDE and RAID modes, not AHCI, but you could look some more. 5-1-3 talks about the AHCI / RAID drivers.

Section 2-6 discusses setting the "on-chip" SATA mode and how, if set to AHCI, individual ports can be set back to IDE, which will handle your existing drive for booting. There is similar text for the "onboard" ports. If I had to take a flaming guess, on-chip come from the chipset and onboard from the separate controller.

So you set one of the controllers to AHCI mode, set a port back to IDE mode and put your existing system disk on it, and attach your new SSD to one that is still in AHCI mode. If you are going to install Win7 on the new SSD, unplug any other HDs in the system when you do it, so that the boot logic will be installed on the SSD.

 

[rahamk]

Windows 7, and im putting it on the ssd, so your saying i have to do it before i instal the OS?

 

[WyomingKnott]

Windows 7, and im putting it on the ssd, so your saying i have to do it before i instal the OS?

I mean that you should disconnect all other drives and twiddle your IDE/AHCI settings before installing Win7, yes.

It would be even better to twiddle the IDE/AHCI settings, ensure that the system still boots off the existing drive, and then disconnect all the other drives and install Win7. That way, you know that you have a fallback option.

If the drive is in AHCI mode when you install Windows, Win7 will install the AHCI driver.
If the drive is the only drive in the system when you install Windows, the drive will be made bootable.
If the drive is unpartitioned when you install Win7, Windows will create a first 100MB partition for boot management, and then the big partition for Win7. Some people prefer not to have this, and partition the drive first. I prefer to have the boot partition.

 

[tecmo34]

If you have your system set to IDE, you can change it to AHCI without doing a fresh install. All you have to do is follow the steps below:

To resolve this issue yourself, 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 one of the following registry subkeys:
■HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
■HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\IastorV
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.

Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

 

[WyomingKnott]

Rahamk

I am eager to know if tecmo34's solution works. If it does, it goes into my toolbox!

Thanks, tecmo34.

 

[tecmo34]

WyomingKnott...

It works!! I had to use it when I first started getting into SSD's. I install my first one in IDE mode and used this document to change it without issues. I found the original feedback from sminlal in this thread.

www.tomshardware.com/forum/255232-32-next-move-fresh-install-windows-intel

 

[WyomingKnott]

Tecmo34

Is there a similar process for XP? It just occurred to my little pea-brain that when I had to do this with changing the drivers through Device Manager I was running XP.

 

[tecmo34]

Tecmo34

Is there a similar process for XP? It just occurred to my little pea-brain that when I had to do this with changing the drivers through Device Manager I was running XP.

I haven't seen one for XP but I'm checking through there pages though.