Windows 7: RAID enabled; Want to switch to ACHI

I have my dad's computer already setup with Windows 7.

For some odd reason being that there is only one drive in the computer. the computer's bios is set to RAID. I know you need at least two drives to perform any RAID functions.

When I tried to switch over the SATA drives in the BIOS from RAID to ACHI, windows failed to start.

Is there some proceedure first that I need to do before I switch them? Like a driver or does the hard drives have to be switched on a clean install of windows?

You should really perform a clean install. When your dad set up RAID, he needed to set up RAID drivers during Windows installation. It would be wise to just reinstall without the RAID drivers to keep everything stable instead of switching at this point.

You could take a look:

AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista

yeah that is what i figured. I was the one that set the computer up but it was a computer bought from HP and that is the way it was set up by default.

Do the companies know what they are doing when they do this or they just send them on their way hoping no one will figure it out?

If your going to do raid... the only way is raid 5.

If it is just one hard drive..what is the point?

Are you sure you have only one HD?

RAID often shows only one HD in Computer which the array creates.

Check Device Manager to see what driver is actually installed.

You sound like you're experienced enough to know, but most users will just see the one HD listed in Computer and not notice it is array.

Most computers are shipped with RAID turned on by default even if you have one (1) hard drive. It will not affect performance and there is no need to change to ACHI. Plus it makes it easy if you want to add another hard drive and use RAID 0 or RAID 1.

[/QUOTE]Most computers are shipped with RAID turned on by default even if you have one (1) hard drive. It will not affect performance and there is no need to change to ACHI. Plus it makes it easy if you want to add another hard drive and use RAID 0 or RAID 1.[/QUOTE]

Are you quite sure about this? It sounds wrong to me.

I admit that I haven't bought a commercial PC since 1995. I've used Dell PCs at a few employers, but all of them were configured by corporate IT.

I'm moderately sure that my current system (X58 chipset, ICH10R controller) not permit a pre-RAID setup with a single disk. I haven't done Intel raid for a while; has a RAID 10 setup, but it appeared to add more annoyance than performance.

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Most computers are shipped with RAID turned on by default even if you have one (1) hard drive. It will not affect performance and there is no need to change to ACHI. Plus it makes it easy if you want to add another hard drive and use RAID 0 or RAID 1

Yep, the last Dell and HP machines we have purchased over the last 6 month all have RAID turned on by default from the factory with only one hard drive.

Corporate IT will make changes as they see fit. They may turn it off for recovery needs, special boot ups, etc.

Ask those with HP AMD based computers running XP about what happened when SP3 came out.