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How to get new SSD disk working with Medion MS-7318 as second boot disk

hwnewbie

Commendable
Jun 5, 2016
2
0
1,510
I have an old Medion PC and added a SSD disk. The disk is listed in device manager as working properly. It is listed as in IDE device. In the BIOS I cannot select AHCI mode. Bios is version11/092006. I formatted the SSD. Current OS is XP. I'd rather not change the BIOS unless it is absolutely necessary.
I read that before trying to use the SSD as a second boot device and installing W7 it should be in AHCI mode.
Is this true? Any hints on how to install W7 and getting a dual boot PC are very welcome.
 
Hey there, hwnewbie.

It's recommended to run SSD in AHCI mode, especially if you have more than 1. However, you should be able to use it just as fine with IDE SATA mode. Unfortunately I don't know the reason for you not to be able to set the SATA controller's mode to AHCI. You could either try updating your BIOS since it sounds pretty outdated, or get in touch with the motherboard manufacturer's customer support for more info.

If you want to dual-boot from two different drives, you can simply disconnect the HDD, install Win 7 on the SSD and then reconnect the HDD. However this method will require you to specify which drive you want to use to boot to Windows. E.g. if you want to boot to XP, you'll have to set the HDD as first booting device, if you want to boot to Win7, you'll have to do that with the SSD.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD
 
Hi Boogieman,
Thanks for your help. When I tried to set the SATA mode (BIOS integrated peripherals, onchip IDE device, SATA controller) to AHCI, the hard disk stopped working, so I set it back to IDE. I did not see a separate option for the SSD.
I was able to install W7 on the SSD and have not yet reconnected the hard disk.
Regards,
hwnewbie