Conflicting instructions to switch IDE to AHCI after windows installed.

[klemmaniac]

I ordered a samsung 850 EVO 500gb SSD and want to move my current setup and system on a platter drive to the new SSD by cloning it. I have Windows 7 64 bit and running on an Asus M4A77TD mobo. I think I may be in IDE mode though and know that I need to switch to AHCI, but am having trouble finding out exactly what the correct process is.
the more I'm reading about it, the more confused I'm getting because different sets of instructions say to change different things to different values.

One youtube video states to change msahci start value to 0, and the one in pciide to 3, while another says to change pciide to 0 (same as msahci start value). Now this tutorial you link to does not mention pciide, but states to change an additional value under iaStorV, which the other two sets of instructions don't even mention....so which is it?? what's the correct procedure???

Currently both my start values in msahci and pciide are both 0, yet the bios and device manager indicates my HDD is in IDE mode (does this make sense? am I already AHCI enabled, but just using IDE or what?)

Also..I just thought of this - can I just make the change to AHCI now with my current platter drive installed (the SSD is not installed yet)? I think my mobo supports it and the current HDD is a sata capable drive I believe. If that's the case, can I: 1) enable AHCI through regedit and reboot in bios now and continue to use the platter drive, 2) install the SSD later with AHCI already set and clone my platter drive to the SSD? is this okay?

Thank you!

 

[popatim]

Your motherbd has IDE & sata ports plus sata 5&6 can be set to ide/achi independently from 1-4. This explains why bot are active.
Please enter your bios and verify that the sata ports are in ahci mode.
Also, being this is a sata 3g motherbd, please do not expect to see 500+MB/s speeds. Anything over 200 will be good.

But if you do need to change
Reboot into the bios and change the sata mode to AHCI.
Make sure your SSD is in a port that you set to ahci...
Save & Exit boot to windows

 

[klemmaniac]

Your motherbd has IDE & sata ports plus sata 5&6 can be set to ide/achi independently from 1-4. This explains why bot are active.
Please enter your bios and verify that the sata ports are in ahci mode.
Also, being this is a sata 3g motherbd, please do not expect to see 500+MB/s speeds. Anything over 200 will be good.

But if you do need to change
Reboot into the bios and change the sata mode to AHCI.
Make sure your SSD is in a port that you set to ahci...
Save & Exit boot to windows

Thank you for the response. I did go into bios and the sata port with my current hard drive (the platter) is set to IDE. I do not have the SSD installed yet. So does this mean that I already have AHCI setup and installed, but that it is just not active and I am using IDE when I could be using AHCI? I can't remember when I installed windows (years ago) if I setup AHCI initially, but would this indicate that? Maybe I did.

So theoretically if the registry values are already there and set without me changing them, but my HDD is set up as IDE in bios, then could I just change that setting to AHCI without further edits, and reboot and will then be in AHCI mode. If that's the case, then I wouldn't need to do anything further and simply install the SSD on the computer now that AHCI is functioning and enabled.

Thanks again.

 

[giantbucket]

1 - you do not NEED to change it. an SSD will work fine using plain old "IDE" mode on your SATA port.
2 - you can either now or later on install the AHCI drivers and then change your Registry and BIOS to AHCI mode. but you really should install the drivers first.
3 - there are some benefits, but not huge. a few extra features, a bit more speed, but nothing really drastic. keeping it in IDE mode isn't going to kill chipmunks.

 

[popatim]

True

But you can also just go ahead and change it and see. It appears that you have the driver installed so it should boot fine. BUT if it doesnt it will generate a blue screen error and a code like 0x000000007B . If you get that just go back into the bios and change it back to IDE and you will be able to boot again no problem.

 

[klemmaniac]

1 - you do not NEED to change it. an SSD will work fine using plain old "IDE" mode on your SATA port.
2 - you can either now or later on install the AHCI drivers and then change your Registry and BIOS to AHCI mode. but you really should install the drivers first.
3 - there are some benefits, but not huge. a few extra features, a bit more speed, but nothing really drastic. keeping it in IDE mode isn't going to kill chipmunks.

Ok thanks for the suggestions but I really want to have it in AHCI mode as that maximizes performance and also enables TRIM which lengthens the life of the drive accord to what I have read. So since my registry has the msahci and pciide start values set to 0, does this mean that the AHCI driver is already installed? and basically I only have to install the drive, clone it, then remove old HDD and boot into bios, change controller setting on the port of the SSD to AHCI...and done?

Or do I need to install the driver still or has it been installed already? I found an AHCI/RAID driver on the Asus M4A77TD mobo website...I can't remember if I installed that ages ago when I built the computer or not. Is this what I would need if the driver is not already installed? how would you recommend I check to see if it is installed before I install the SSD? Can I set my platter drive to AHCI? Thanks again.

 

[klemmaniac]

Well I decided to live dangerously and set my sata hdd port to AHCI in bios and booted..windows started fine it all seems to work,...and this is on my platter hard disk drive (I haven't gotten the SSD installed and wanted to test if AHCI would work). AS SSD says that msahci is "OK", but my registry values for iaStorV is 3 (I was told it should be set to 0?) and pciide is set to 0 as well (one tutorial mentioned setting this to 3). msahci start value is 0 as it should be and I didn't need to change it. Do I need to change these to prevent problems or can I leave them alone since the system booted in AHCI mode? Am I all set with AHCI now and can just install the SSD? Do I need to change those registry values to prevent future problems or if there was going to a problem then it would have already surfaced? see pics.
thanks.

 

[giantbucket]

analysis paralysis? 😛

since you have it working, and you know how to find the registry values, make a clone of it as-is now and then start playing with the cloned version on the SSD, changing fields and running AS SSD / CrystalDisk / whatever, and see what combinations yield what results. you might find that some work great, some crash, etc.

 

[klemmaniac]

Ok maybe it's being overly cautious but I've never installed an SSD before and want to keep the troubleshooting to a minimum. To fail to plan is to plan to fail as they say. I really don't want to do much tinkering and tweaking, I just want to make sure that AHCI is functioning properly to have the TRIM function working and ensure that my recent switch will not cause errors down the road (some of the reason I am asking about my current registry values is because I've been scared by other posters that state that enabling AHCI improperly or at all even will cause issues). So anyways, if the computer boots up with the SSD and current registry values (though incorrect according to the tutorials on how to switch controller modes), and AS SSD shows msahci as 'OK'. then does that mean that no further action is needed?

 

[popatim]

Msahci is the Miscrosoft AHCI drive and this is what you are currently using. You can verify this by running AS-SSD Check the driver and alignement


Iastor is Intel's driver. Both work very well and have Trim support.

If you want iastor just install Intel's AHCI driver and reboot.

 

[tingRe]

1. In c:\Windows\System32\sysprep\ run sysprep.exe. Ask for the "Out Of Box Experience," check the "generalize" box, and select "shutdown."

This will allow Your system to reinitialize the hardware when it reboots.

2. When it shuts down, turn it back on and enter the BIOS. Change IDE to AHCI.

3. Windows will reinitialize itself for the first run. Your old user profiles will still be there, but you will have to copy the stuff back over.

Warning: I am not responsible for errant Microsoft piracy detection nor am I able to support you in copying your user profiles back over.

 

[WinOutreach2]

Let me try and give a little bit more detailed of a response to this question.

PCIIDE is the driver for IDE mode, required to communicate with drives connected to a controller in IDE or Legacy Mode
MSAHCI is the driver for AHCI mode, this mode enables additional functionality for connected SATA drives such as hot plug compatibility, it is required for drives connected to a controller in AHCI or Native mode
IAStorV is the driver for Intel chipsets in RAID mode, this mode enables RAID 0 (Striping), RAID 1 (Mirroring), and RAID 5 (Parity) on many Intel based motherboards

Each of these drivers is included in the default driver set with Windows and when you first install Windows each of these drivers are enabled allowing successful installation no matter what configuration you have your motherboard in. After installation to increase performance, unused storage drivers are automatically disabled.

Whether a driver is enabled or disabled is controlled by the start key for that driver in the registry. 0 means that the driver is enabled, 3 means the driver is disabled. All storage drivers can be enabled at the same time, so when changing storage modes it is not necessary to set the driver no longer in use (PCIIDE) to 3, but it can be done.
There are other drivers that can be required for different onboard storage controllers, such as the AMD SB710 RAID controller located on your motherboard (AHCIx64s) or additional onboard storage controllers (e.g. the Marvell and JMicron controllers on my ASUS P8P67 Pro). Add-on HBAs (Host Based Adapters) or RAID cards usually also have separate storage drivers (e.g Areca, LSI, etc.)

Also, there is absolutely no need to run Sysprep to change storage modes. In fact it will remove your activation information and often will remove a number other drivers, so it is definitely not recommended.