AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista

AHCI : Enable in Vista and Windows 7 after OS install​

   Information

AHCI Advanced Host Controller Interface makes NCQ Native Command Queing along with hot-plugging or hot swapping through SATA Serial-ATA host controllers possible; Vista was the first to offer this feature. The issue with AHCI is it needs to be enabled in the BIOS prior to OS installation; doing so after you have installed the OS will disable the PC. The reason why is Windows disables the AHCI drivers not needed durring installation.

This tutorial will show you how to enable AHCI after you have installed the OS if you didn't already have AHCI enable in the BIOS when you installed the OS.

   Warning

Changing values in the Windows registry can disable your machine; if you're not sure how to do this please post a question in this tutorial and someone will be glad to help you.

   Note

This method will also work for Windows Vista though the default DWORD string value in Vista will be "4" where it will be "3" in Windows 7.

As a precaution it would be a good idea to create a "System Restore Point" before you start this, the tutorial can be found at the link below.

System Restore Point - Create

Let's get started!
1) In the Windows start menu search box type regedit, right click the entry, click Run as Administrator, enter your user credentials for the UAC prompt, then click yes to open regedit.



2) In regedit navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services.

3) In the left pane, click on msahci, in the right pane double click on Start to modify it.


4) In the window that opens change the value to 0 (zero), and click OK.

5) In the left pane, click on iaStorV (if there), in the right pane double click on Start to modify it. Repeat step 4, and go to step 6 below.
NOTE: From: Error message occurs after you change the SATA mode of the boot drive

6) Close Registry Editor.
7) Now you'll need to restart the PC and go into the BIOS and enable AHCI. When Windows boots up, it will finish installing the AHCI drivers.



8) You will need one final restart to finish the process after the drivers are installed.

   Note

For those with nForce boards, have a look at the Information post below.

The method was worked out by Everlong and credit for that goes to him, thanks mate!

Enjoy!

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Enable AHCI in Windows 8 and Windows 10 after Installation
• How to Enable HIPM and DIPM for your SSD and HDD in Windows 7

 

[A Guy]

Airbot rightfully pointed me to this thread (sorry about that!), and am wondering. What advantage is there besides improved WEI numbers and SSD performance? I have spinners, and if there will be no noticeable difference, I won't bother. A Guy

 

[blackroseMD1]

Airbot rightfully pointed me to this thread (sorry about that!), and am wondering. What advantage is there besides improved WEI numbers and SSD performance? I have spinners, and if there will be no noticeable difference, I won't bother. A Guy

I tried it with my HDDs and noticed no difference, except when I tried to go back to IDE, I couldn't access my data anymore.

In my experience, which is limited, I admit, AHCI should be used only if you have an SSD.

 

[A Guy]

Thanks blackrose, that alone is answer I sought. Thanks, A Guy

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

ok I've read this entire thread and still cannot get it to work. I changed the registry value. Downloaded the drivers from dell (only had ones for vista 64bit) there is no exe file to automatically install the drivers. So I went to device manager and tried to update the drivers manually and it said the latest drivers were installed. If I choose let me decide then select have disk and point it to the driver folder it then says it installed sucessfully. So i restart my computer and change the bios settings and I get a bluescreen when windows starts loading. Then I have to do a system restore.

When in device manager and I point it to the right folder there are 2 different files I can choose from. One is iaAHCI.inf and the other is iaStor.inf. After I choose either one it then lists several different models which are like Intel ICH7, ICH9, ICH8 etc... So wich file should I choose and then how do I tell which model I need to pick?

Thanks

Hello wakeboardr116.

I don't have an answer for you, let me look around and if I can come up with anything I'll post back here, in the mean-time keep checking back as someone else may have the info you need.

Airbot rightfully pointed me to this thread (sorry about that!), and am wondering. What advantage is there besides improved WEI numbers and SSD performance? I have spinners, and if there will be no noticeable difference, I won't bother. A Guy

Hello A Guy.

There are other advantages like discussed at the links below, though as blackroseMD1 said, there's not much to be gained if you don't do "hot swapping" which is mostly a server thing.

AHCI Advanced Host Controller Interface makes NCQ Native Command Queing along with hot-plugging or hot swapping through SATA Serial-ATA host controllers possible.

 

[lafargeotte]

I have 2 SATA HDDs (one is Win7 Boot), one IDE HDD (for backup), one SATA DVS & one IDE DVD.

Can I use AHCI mode, and if so is it worth it?

Thanks.

 

[bc3tech]

not too keen on searching this thread to find out so i'll just ask:

how do i find out if i'm currently utilizing AHCI or IDE?

 

[Dave76]

ok I've read this entire thread and still cannot get it to work. I changed the registry value. Downloaded the drivers from dell (only had ones for vista 64bit) there is no exe file to automatically install the drivers. So I went to device manager and tried to update the drivers manually and it said the latest drivers were installed. If I choose let me decide then select have disk and point it to the driver folder it then says it installed sucessfully. So i restart my computer and change the bios settings and I get a bluescreen when windows starts loading. Then I have to do a system restore.

When in device manager and I point it to the right folder there are 2 different files I can choose from. One is iaAHCI.inf and the other is iaStor.inf. After I choose either one it then lists several different models which are like Intel ICH7, ICH9, ICH8 etc... So wich file should I choose and then how do I tell which model I need to pick?

Thanks

Had a look at your manual, typical Dell manual, vague, have been using them for years. Generally not much help.

Does you BIOS say RAID Autodetect/ATA?
Give me the exact wording for all the choices.

From your manual:

SATA Drives 0 through 4
(On default)

Enables or disables drives attached to the SATA connectors on the system board.

Off — A device attached to the interface is not usable.
On — A device attached to the interface is usable.

eSATA
(On default)

Enables or disables eSATA.

Off — eSATA is disabled.
On — eSATA is enabled.
NOTE: eSATA is not supported in ATA mode.

SATA Operation

(RAID On default)

Enables or disables RAID (for more information, see the Dell Technology Guide).

RAID Autodetect/ATA — RAID if signed drives, otherwise ATA.
RAID On — SATA is configured for RAID on every boot.

From my dealings with Dell, SATA should mean AHCI will be working.
ATA, strictly by definition can mean SATA or PATA, with Dell I think it means PATA, so no AHCI.

It appears that if your using ports 0-4, it should be in SATA, meaning AHCI enabled.

Are there other ports dedicated for RAID?
They might be a different color.
Dell is very careful about not giving any more information than they absolutely have to.

Also noticed at the Dell Community help site,
ATA can mean PATA(IDE) or SATA, the ATA mode in the bios is more stable, and your drive is running in SATA mode.
Not sure if this info is accurate.

Read this, How to turn on RAID / eSata port on XPS 420.
It's for a XPS 420, but should be similar to yours, just use your latest driver for your XPS 430.
This may be what you have already done.

Have a look around that forum, or post a question, you might get the answer.
It's a user to user forum, which is usually more helpful than from Dell

 

[Dave76]

Airbot rightfully pointed me to this thread (sorry about that!), and am wondering. What advantage is there besides improved WEI numbers and SSD performance? I have spinners, and if there will be no noticeable difference, I won't bother. A Guy

AHCI is for HDDs and SSDs.

I have the 500GB (32MB Cache) version of the same HDD that you have, when I switched to AHCI, I noticed a performance improvement.

Read the links BFK posted.
NCQ, reduces disk thrashing, lets the HD operate more efficiently by reading/writing more info in a single pass.

There're more benefits.

It's important to be sure your HDD has the features that AHCI will enable and use, yours does.
Some people don't notice an improvement, this may be due to their HDD not having the features needed.

YMMV...

 

[wakeboardr116]

ok I've read this entire thread and still cannot get it to work. I changed the registry value. Downloaded the drivers from dell (only had ones for vista 64bit) there is no exe file to automatically install the drivers. So I went to device manager and tried to update the drivers manually and it said the latest drivers were installed. If I choose let me decide then select have disk and point it to the driver folder it then says it installed sucessfully. So i restart my computer and change the bios settings and I get a bluescreen when windows starts loading. Then I have to do a system restore.

When in device manager and I point it to the right folder there are 2 different files I can choose from. One is iaAHCI.inf and the other is iaStor.inf. After I choose either one it then lists several different models which are like Intel ICH7, ICH9, ICH8 etc... So wich file should I choose and then how do I tell which model I need to pick?

Thanks

Had a look at your manual, typical Dell manual, vague, have been using them for years. Generally not much help.

Does you BIOS say RAID Autodetect/ATA?
Give me the exact wording for all the choices.

From your manual:

SATA Drives 0 through 4
(On default)

Enables or disables drives attached to the SATA connectors on the system board.

Off — A device attached to the interface is not usable.
On — A device attached to the interface is usable.

eSATA
(On default)

Enables or disables eSATA.

Off — eSATA is disabled.
On — eSATA is enabled.
NOTE: eSATA is not supported in ATA mode.

SATA Operation

(RAID On default)

Enables or disables RAID (for more information, see the Dell Technology Guide).

RAID Autodetect/ATA — RAID if signed drives, otherwise ATA.
RAID On — SATA is configured for RAID on every boot.

From my dealings with Dell, SATA should mean AHCI will be working.
ATA, strictly by definition can mean SATA or PATA, with Dell I think it means PATA, so no AHCI.

It appears that if your using ports 0-4, it should be in SATA, meaning AHCI enabled.

Are there other ports dedicated for RAID?
They might be a different color.
Dell is very careful about not giving any more information than they absolutely have to.

Also noticed at the Dell Community help site,
ATA can mean PATA(IDE) or SATA, the ATA mode in the bios is more stable, and your drive is running in SATA mode.
Not sure if this info is accurate.

Read this, How to turn on RAID / eSata port on XPS 420.
It's for a XPS 420, but should be similar to yours, just use your latest driver for your XPS 430.
This may be what you have already done.

Have a look around that forum, or post a question, you might get the answer.
It's a user to user forum, which is usually more helpful than from Dell

Thanks. Thats pretty much exactly what the BIOS says. It has RAID autodetect and RAID ON. Right now its on RAID Autodetect.

I have my SSD on port 0 and my HDD on port 1. Then on port 2 I have my disk drive.

I'm not sure if certain ones are dedicated to raid or not, but port 0 is blue, ports 1,3, and 4 are black, but port 2 is white. Not sure if that means anything there.

Thanks for the links. I'll read through those as soon as I get a chance.

 

[ZaLiTH]

Airbot rightfully pointed me to this thread (sorry about that!), and am wondering. What advantage is there besides improved WEI numbers and SSD performance? I have spinners, and if there will be no noticeable difference, I won't bother. A Guy

I'd say AHCI makes a bigger difference to spinners than it does to SSDs, simply due to the fact that NCQ improves random seek times quite nicely on the mechanical drives. However, I must also admit I don't have any SSD drives yet, so that is essentially speculation on my part at the moment.

Airbot rightfully pointed me to this thread (sorry about that!), and am wondering. What advantage is there besides improved WEI numbers and SSD performance? I have spinners, and if there will be no noticeable difference, I won't bother. A Guy

I tried it with my HDDs and noticed no difference, except when I tried to go back to IDE, I couldn't access my data anymore.

In my experience, which is limited, I admit, AHCI should be used only if you have an SSD.

One very important point to keep in mind here; AHCI, or more specifically, NCQ will only appear to improve a mechanical drive's performance if there is anything more than light file fragmentation. Other than that, there is nothing for the native command queing feature to really do..

not too keen on searching this thread to find out so i'll just ask:

how do i find out if i'm currently utilizing AHCI or IDE?

The easiest way to check this is to look at the "Safely Remove Hardware" system tray icon (usually only shown when a USB flash drive is plugged in); if you see your normal HDDs in that list as well, then you have either AHCI or RAID more enabled.. If you're not running RAID, then it's just straight AHCI. Hope that helps...

 

[blackroseMD1]

I tried it with my HDDs and noticed no difference, except when I tried to go back to IDE, I couldn't access my data anymore.

In my experience, which is limited, I admit, AHCI should be used only if you have an SSD.

One very important point to keep in mind here; AHCI, or more specifically, NCQ will only appear to improve a mechanical drive's performance if there is anything more than light file fragmentation. Other than that, there is nothing for the native command queing feature to really do..

You have a good point there. The drive I was using was a 4 year old WD drive so, after some research, I don't think it was fully compatible anyway.

 

[Dave76]

Thanks. Thats pretty much exactly what the BIOS says. It has RAID autodetect and RAID ON. Right now its on RAID Autodetect.

I have my SSD on port 0 and my HDD on port 1. Then on port 2 I have my disk drive.

I'm not sure if certain ones are dedicated to raid or not, but port 0 is blue, ports 1,3, and 4 are black, but port 2 is white. Not sure if that means anything there.

Thanks for the links. I'll read through those as soon as I get a chance.

I did a lengthy search on the colors of Dells SATA ports, asked Dell support, in the end the only answer I got was the colors don't mean anything.

As usual, one thread says RAID Autodetect means AHCI is enabled, the next thread says RAID Autodetect is PATA (IDE) so no AHCI.

You might try Dell XPS support, you might get an answer.

 

[wakeboardr116]

Thanks. Thats pretty much exactly what the BIOS says. It has RAID autodetect and RAID ON. Right now its on RAID Autodetect.

I have my SSD on port 0 and my HDD on port 1. Then on port 2 I have my disk drive.

I'm not sure if certain ones are dedicated to raid or not, but port 0 is blue, ports 1,3, and 4 are black, but port 2 is white. Not sure if that means anything there.

Thanks for the links. I'll read through those as soon as I get a chance.

I did a lengthy search on the colors of Dells SATA ports, asked Dell support, in the end the only answer I got was the colors don't mean anything.

As usual, one thread says RAID Autodetect means AHCI is enabled, the next thread says RAID Autodetect is PATA (IDE) so no AHCI.

You might try Dell XPS support, you might get an answer.

Thanks for all the help. I was able to find this thread XPS430 & Win7 - SATA - Disk Drives (HDD, CD/DVD, Blu-ray) Forum - Disk Drives - Dell Community on dells support site which explained it some. I tried out the updated intel drivers it linked to but still cant find one that works. I posted a relpy asking about it but have yet to recieve a response.

Is there a way to find out which controller device my board has (i.e. ICH8, ICH9R, ICH9M etc..) I think that could be part of the problem. I just dont know which one to choose from the list after I load the newer driver in device manager.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Thanks. Thats pretty much exactly what the BIOS says. It has RAID autodetect and RAID ON. Right now its on RAID Autodetect.

I have my SSD on port 0 and my HDD on port 1. Then on port 2 I have my disk drive.

I'm not sure if certain ones are dedicated to raid or not, but port 0 is blue, ports 1,3, and 4 are black, but port 2 is white. Not sure if that means anything there.

Thanks for the links. I'll read through those as soon as I get a chance.

I did a lengthy search on the colors of Dells SATA ports, asked Dell support, in the end the only answer I got was the colors don't mean anything.

As usual, one thread says RAID Autodetect means AHCI is enabled, the next thread says RAID Autodetect is PATA (IDE) so no AHCI.

You might try Dell XPS support, you might get an answer.

Thanks for all the help. I was able to find this thread XPS430 & Win7 - SATA - Disk Drives (HDD, CD/DVD, Blu-ray) Forum - Disk Drives - Dell Community on dells support site which explained it some. I tried out the updated intel drivers it linked to but still cant find one that works. I posted a relpy asking about it but have yet to recieve a response.

Is there a way to find out which controller device my board has (i.e. ICH8, ICH9R, ICH9M etc..) I think that could be part of the problem. I just dont know which one to choose from the list after I load the newer driver in device manager.

Howdy.

Have a look at the link below, SIW is an excellent app to find your system info, it'll even run from a USB stick and it's free.

SIW - System Information for Windows

 

[wakeboardr116]

Thanks. It says my southbridge is ICH9R, which I thought it was. So I guess that is not part of the problem.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Thanks. It says my southbridge is ICH9R, which I thought it was. So I guess that is not part of the problem.

Glad I could help mate.

 

[Dave76]

Thanks. Thats pretty much exactly what the BIOS says. It has RAID autodetect and RAID ON. Right now its on RAID Autodetect.

I have my SSD on port 0 and my HDD on port 1. Then on port 2 I have my disk drive.

I'm not sure if certain ones are dedicated to raid or not, but port 0 is blue, ports 1,3, and 4 are black, but port 2 is white. Not sure if that means anything there.

Thanks for the links. I'll read through those as soon as I get a chance.

I did a lengthy search on the colors of Dells SATA ports, asked Dell support, in the end the only answer I got was the colors don't mean anything.

As usual, one thread says RAID Autodetect means AHCI is enabled, the next thread says RAID Autodetect is PATA (IDE) so no AHCI.

You might try Dell XPS support, you might get an answer.

Thanks for all the help. I was able to find this thread XPS430 & Win7 - SATA - Disk Drives (HDD, CD/DVD, Blu-ray) Forum - Disk Drives - Dell Community on dells support site which explained it some. I tried out the updated intel drivers it linked to but still cant find one that works. I posted a relpy asking about it but have yet to recieve a response.

Is there a way to find out which controller device my board has (i.e. ICH8, ICH9R, ICH9M etc..) I think that could be part of the problem. I just dont know which one to choose from the list after I load the newer driver in device manager.

Glad you found out that you have a X48 Express Chipset/ICH9R.

Have a look at the 4th post in this thread:

Thanks to SmoothSL for posting this in other forums.
Instructions to turn on RAID and to use the eSata port on your XPS 420

If there is anything different in these instructions, you can try it again.

The procedure for switching to 'RAID on' for the XPS 420 will be the same for your XPS 430.

You will get more help on the Dell site if you copy your first post and make a new thread.

 

[Night Hawk]

I have a rather interesting twist to toss your way about seeing the AHCI mode when needing to switch back to the Native ide mode when first getting the new build up and running here. When switching to the AHCI Windows startup was actually bogged down on the first Sata III being tried out for a main host drive.

Later when a hardware change forced a clean install that went on HD#0 being a Sata II and saw the Native ide mode as named in the bios here used instead. I'm curious about the effect of now switching back to AHCI and using the guide here for the registry change.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello Night Hawk.



If you're asking if you can change from IDE to AHCI in a clean install (i.e. installed as IDE) of course you should be able to, that's the purpose of this tutorial.

 

[Night Hawk]

When first installing 7 on the new build it was set to AHCI ending with a very sluggish response until set to the Native ide setting on the bios here.

With the registry value change and reset to AHCI the startup repair was unable to correct the new startup problem seen with the present installation resulting in a square command prompt screen appearing in a brief second with a blue trim on the border before the instant restart.

Your assumption on this being used on a clean install and not for any existing installation is quite correct. All I could do however was give a look for the present one.