IDE or AHCI for my HDD ?

Gi Ter

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Which Sata mode would be better ? and MB Debug shows AA code what that means, there's some problem ?
 
i set all my drives to ide just so i can read my older drives to get files off them from older builds .. i ran into a issue with a achi set computer that i could not access the ide set drive so now i keep thenm all ide thats all ... the two dont like to cross as far as speed or asnything else like that i dont see no real differance all works fine and dandy [opinion] achi is newer and ''better'' but if so i cant see it -- if you dont ned compatibly as i did then just go achi [this is for platter drives ] don't know if ssd works on ide or not ?? never used one ..
 

Gi Ter

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i've 2 more HDD's so i'm little frustrated what to use i know AHCI is better faster for SSD but for my old HDD ?



PC was freezing on AHCI then i changed in BIOS to IDE and windows booted with no problem and why is it showing AHCI again ? maybe it was freezing because it was installed in IDE mode, my old mobo didn't have AHCI support
 

need4speeds

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I just went through this with my gaming\living room pc. It has been upgraded many times since it started out with a K6-2-200mhz with a voodoo and matrox 3d pci card sis 2d and pc-chips sis 4 channel surround sound. But the 3.11 to 98 to winxp install is still from back then. Now it's dual boot with win7 64. As a result i was not surprised and even expecting to see a bsod when trying to enable something like achi.

Vista and 7 only needs a minor registry change for both intel and amd chipsets. YOU MUST DO THE CHANGE BEFORE REBOOTING IN AHCI MODE WHILE STILL RUNNING IN IDE MODE. Windows xp wont let you install the driver so you must change the cables around or do a complicated registry edit and manually copy the driver files. Changing the cables around a couple of times is far easier for windows xp.

WINDOWS WONT LET YOU INSTALL SOMETHING THAT IS NOT INSTALLED YET.
A way easier way to do this is to simply enable ACHI mode but set it for ide mode for sata ports 4/5. This works for amd A75 "Llano" apus, it might work for intel and other amd chipsets. Then change your cable for your boot drive over to 4 or 5. Set the bios to boot from that drive.
Boot into windows xp or older and install your ACHI drivers. Windows vista, 7 or newer will auto install the drivers on bootup.
After booting into all of your windows installs, change your cables back to ports 1-3 and change the ide 4\5 to sata.
Reboot each install so it installs the extra sata channels. Make sure you have the drivers for your chipset or sata chip unpacked in a folder ahead of time for windows xp or older. After you have it all working with achi enabled in windows vista or 7 install the one for your chipset so it's not using the slower one windows comes with.

It is faster and worth the effort. ACHI supports more than one command at a time and much faster speeds.

I never tried microsoft's fixit tool. (AT YOUR OWN RISK)
go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9741862

 
it was installed in IDE mode, my old mobo didn't have AHCI support

that's close to what I tried to say at first --- look it don't matter overall but like me I use old window drives set to ide [ all sata ] but if I did not need to read from the old drives achi is just fine once you set a drive to one or the other I found it best to keep it all that way-- and over all I don't see any performance gains over the 2 settings with a platter drive -- that's all achi just a newer driver and some improved features over ide but may not be optimized on a few drives .

as you said a drive set to ide and windows is on it, it wount boot to a computer set to ahci but over all either setting is just fine for platter

 

Gi Ter

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I'm more than frustrated :) i've 3 HDD(SATA-II), two of them is needed just for keeping files and etc. so if i'll set ahci then those 2 hdd will be unreadable ?

before windows install i'll change in BIOS SATA MODE to ahci, someone told me to connect only 1 hdd while windows installing is that ok ?
 

Gi Ter

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i know that regedit way but there're other reasons why i'm re-installing windows not because this

as i see all 3 hdd are SATA and has NCQ support, (depends on AIDA64) and so i can try AHCI yeah ?
 
ya go for it all I'm saying is lets say my old computer hard drive has a lot of files on it I want to save or I may need so my new computer has a new drive I load windows on it and fire it up -- alls good -- ok then I hook up my old drive like a storage drive check to see if its in the bios if so I fire up and go to computer .. there I should see my new drive as C and the old drive as E and what ever the optical is --- so now I click on the old drive to open it and theres all the stuff on it that I collected and then all I need to do is copy and paste what I want as I need it -- but I could be wrong but I do remember if the drive I had was a ide and put it on a achi set computer I was not able to access it so this is why I set all the drives now to ide .. its crazy and I'm bad at explaining this . also a ahci drive will not boot on ide or ide will not boot on achi -- so the main thing is choose one and stick with it and if you go all achi that's fine should be no prob...
 
actually use AHCI, the OS (whether that's Windows, Linux or even Ghost) has to have an AHCI driver. Windows Vista and 7 include the driver, but don't install it if the boot drive's controller doesn't have AHCI enabled. Similarly, the IDE driver doesn't get installed if the IDE controller is disabled. That's why you can't just toggle the setting in the BIOS on an already installed Windows system.

I got several old build drives that I can just reach up grab one and stick them in as needed weather its windows or Linux and retrieve files from them . not have a dang it moment cause now the drive is a ahci and I'm set up on ide or what ever ... it all inline set up the same get what I need when I need it
 
IDE: For better compatibility.
AHCI: Supports new features that improve performance.
RAID: Combine multiple disk drives into a logical unit.

I shoot for the compatibility with platter drives


well no matter how I google this I cant find a darn thing .. just everything but what I want on this so to show you in better words or understanding.. all I can say now is use one crive as your primary boot drive set up as ide or ahci then hook you remaining drives as like you would for storage ... and you should be able to read the files [??] but as a bootable drive they will all need to be set as the same as you got the controller in the bios on the board as long as there not on the same 2 ports set in the bios --