AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista

I am frustrated beyond words trying to get AHCI enabled on my computer and could use your help.

Current Setup:
Dell Studio XPS 800
Win 7 Home Premium
Intel i5
Seagate 1TB HDD (Only about 50% used)
6GB Ram

My goal is to move everything to my new Samsung 850 Evo 1 TB SSD since my machine is older...
I have purchased the Samsung drive, mounting adapter and transfer cable but cannot get AHCI option
to appear in my BIOS.

After spending countless hours on what I thought would be a seemingly simple project I am ready to go postal.

I have done the regedit changes from 3 to 0 for the mcachi + mcachi and IastorV + mcachi+ Iastor + IastorV without success.

Then I read the my computer runs an Intel P55 controller which (I am lost at this point) means that I have to run Intel RST to be able to activate AHCI. However when I run the Intel RST I get a message that the platform isn't supported....

SSD install on XPS Studio 8000 ( no AHCI in BIOS ) - General Hardware - Desktop - Dell Community
xps8000 and SSD drive - General Hardware - Desktop - Dell Community


https://downloadcenter.intel.com/dow...AID-Driver?v=t


I am chasing my tail and could use some help.

If you would be kind enough to help me I would gladly pay you via paypal $25 or $50 for your time.
My spam email address is tampaone@gmail.com if you want to chat offline.

Thank you.

Anthony

I had a similar problem with an older desktop. I was also at wits end. It appeared to that I had done everything right but no AHCI.

If you haven't tried this, look to see if you can do a chipset update. I could turn on AHCI in win 7 (pro in my case) and in the bios but (if I recall correctly), the machine would start booting and then stall. Turn it off in the bios (not in windows) and it booted fine. Updating the chipset (again chipset, not bios) did the trick. After that, everything worked fine.

If you're stuck not using the machine, what I did was to install their magician software to run once a day until I had this solved.

spokey said:

I had a similar problem with an older desktop. I was also at wits end. It appeared to that I had done everything right but no AHCI.

If you haven't tried this, look to see if you can do a chipset update. I could turn on AHCI in win 7 (pro in my case) and in the bios but (if I recall correctly), the machine would start booting and then stall. Turn it off in the bios (not in windows) and it booted fine. Updating the chipset (again chipset, not bios) did the trick. After that, everything worked fine.

If you're stuck not using the machine, what I did was to install their magician software to run once a day until I had this solved.

I did the chipset upgrade previously and have the latest....Thanks anyways....
Still stuck in purgatory.....

It's been a LONG time since I did this, but here's what I remember:
There are prep 2 steps:

1. Update the registry to ENABLE the AHCI mode. This has to be done via regedit.
2. Change the access method in BIOS for that drive to AHCI

They MUST be done in that order. THEN you can attach the drive and it should boot.
You can do step 1 on your old drive, then clone your OS (with the registry change) to the SSD, then do step 2.

DocDJ said:

It's been a LONG time since I did this, but here's what I remember:
There are prep 2 steps:

1. Update the registry to ENABLE the AHCI mode. This has to be done via regedit.
2. Change the access method in BIOS for that drive to AHCI

They MUST be done in that order. THEN you can attach the drive and it should boot.
You can do step 1 on your old drive, then clone your OS (with the registry change) to the SSD, then do step 2.

I assumed he has done that. I had done that when I had the problem. Everything looked cool except it didn't boot. No explanation and if I remember correctly, it would begin booting. I think I might have even gotten the four coloured panes. But then a black screen and nothing else. Having updated the chipset (not bios), then viola, just started working.

Registry edits don't work in my HP Pavilion A6400f, Award BIOS 5.43, ASUS IPIBL-LB mobo.
On restart Windows logo doesn't even get one pane completed before the system reboots.

Thanks for the information about the IDE controller problem.
It is not only Nvidia cards that can do this but it can also happen with AMD !


Putting in those good old 2006 Microsoft drivers, as explained, can solve the problem,


Not only could you have problems with Trim but I had SSD firmware update issues.
My Kingston 300sv would not update from the Kingston SSD Manager until I changed those drivers..