New
#1
Cannot connect data HDs after installing SSD and setting SATA to ACHI
I have set up a new rig with the following components:
Gigabyte Z97X-SLI
Intel Core i5-4690K
Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB Drive
Im running everything pretty vanilla, using onboard video, audio, network, etc.
I originally installed Win 7 with the BIOS SATA mode set for IDE as I have two data drives that I used on my older rig that I wanted to access and the system would not boot with the SATA mode set on ACHI. All worked fine until I reset SATA to ACHI and then I could not boot. I get through the BIOS boot and windows went into its "Launch Startup Repair" routine but then just kept looping back to that screen. Since I wasn't getting anywhere with swapping SATA ports and doing the regedit changes to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services|msachi start=0 and ...Pciiede Start=0 , I decided I would just disconnect the data drives and reinstall windows with the BIOS SATA mode already on ACHI. I was able to get that done with no problem and the system boots fine with just the SSD and my CDDVD drive plugged in. Whenever I add either of the two data drives or both simultaneously, I cannot boot, and windows goes into the "Launch Startup Repair" routine which will not complete and just says that I have added hardware that is not being recognized. I have tried the trick with the regedit entries and no luck.
My two drives are both Western Digitals. One is a WD20 EFRX 2 TB drive recent vintage. The other is an old WD 1600 160 GB drive. When I view the device manager screen, there is a warning shown under Other Devices - PCI Simple Communications Controller. When I try to update the driver for this device, windows cannot find it. Somehow, I think this must be the root of the problem but I don/t know how to fix it.