Windows 7: AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista

Information is hard to find, very little on Intel's site.

Here's some basic info, you probably have seen these, posted for others to see if they haven't already.

RAID From Wikipedia

Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI)


And the rest is really hard to find, mostly discussions a couple of benchmark tests, not much info really.
As you mentioned, I find this rather strange, even an Intel search gives old information.


Other misc info found, that might be of interest.


Benchmark Performance SSD Testing: AHCI vs IDE

Can I reopen this thread? I'm not sure I can get my computer to boot if I change the BIOS to AHCI. Not understanding the problem, I've tried to change that state to AHCI and the machine would not boot. After changing it back to IDE enhanced it would then boot. But I'm eager to make this change if it will work and I've appreciated your prior postings in this thread.

Hello mendopaul.



If you do the steps exactly as in the tutorial you should be ok.

Have a look at this tutorial at the link below before you start this to create at least 1 restore point, and 2 would be better in case you have any issues, a system restore will set the registry back to what it was before you started; be sure to post back with any further questions you may have and to keep us informed.

How to Create a System Restore Point in Windows 7

Hey Ted,

Wow I figured it out! I changed the # from 3 to 0, then went into the bios and switched it from IDE to AHCI and rebooted.

Is it normal that whenever I reboot it says on one of the bootup screens:

"AHCI driver INT..." before it goes to the desktop? I know it was suppose to do it when I first made the change...just wondering I guess if it will do that every time I restart now. Just making sure I didn't mess something up.

Casey

Hello Casey.



Well done.

The way SSDs are constructed, they don't need to be defragged.

So I just installed my os onto my new ssd and I did it in ide mode. my previous os was on my hdd is a raid 0 format. Can I use my ssd in achi while keep my hdd in raid 0? I have a gigibyte bios and it has 2 options for changing the ide/raid/achi not sure if both have to be on what

Hello onthemour, welcome to Seven Forums!



I'm not sure what you're asking; are you asking if you can dual boot both the SSD and the RAID HDDs using the Windows managed dual boot?

I don't believe that would be possible; if it was a BIOS managed dual boot it may be possible though you would have to change back and forth between AHCI_SSD and RAID_HDD using the BIOS which I feel would become tedious after a while.

I had a dual boot with XP in IDE and Windows 7 in AHCI and I had to use the BIOS to boot to either and it became more trouble than it was worth before long.

When I set bios to raid and boot into my ssd os my hdd raid0 shows up as drive f and I can access the files on it. Which is what I want. I was wondering if I am getting ahci for my ssd? I read on forums that with raid enabled I get ahci eneabled for ssd. Is this true and if so do I get trim? It is a ocz vertex2 120gig

I don't have much practical experience with RAID, so hopefully someone else will have some suggestions for you, just keep checking back.

Newer computers and newer controllers typically only have IDE and RAID. If you select RAID and do NOT create a RAID all drives are running in AHCI. -WS