Bios settings re new SSD boot drive & MB Sata connectors

trinaz · 06 Jan 2014

Just migrated/updated my main C: drive to a SSD Seagate 128GB drive....minor issues at first but now running great.

Question is re my system bios. What if any is the correlation between the Sata 'order' in the following:

Bios Main Settings readout ( bios main settings.jpg )
Bios Boot settings/Hard Disk Drive ( bios boot settings.jpg )
Sata ports on MB numbered 1-6

Should these not have the drives listed in the same order in the readouts...?...is there a way to make MB board Sata1 port the C: drive...Sata2 port drive the Maxtor Drive...etc

Are the MB Sata ports numbering related in any way to what shows up in the two attached bios HDD/SSD bios screens ?

Thanks...TRinAz

theog · 06 Jan 2014

Change the cables round to suit.
SATA3G...1 = SSD.
2 to 5 = to suit.
SATA3G...6 = DVD.

trinaz · 07 Jan 2014

Thanks theog...I thought that was what I was doing but turns out I was reading the sata ports #'s left to right but they are set up & down my 2 was really 3...etc....works fine now...

Another question...the Samsung Magician info for the SSD says that "AHCI is disabled...AHCI Mode is required for best SSD performance"

How do I enable this...the only option in bios I found was for Sata's 1-4...which are set now to IDE...when I enabled AHCI....I got a boot disk error...changing back to IDE for Satas 1-4 and all is well again ?

How do I enable AHCI for the SSD drive only ?

Thanks...TiminAz

carwiz · 07 Jan 2014

AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista

By the way, it should be enabled for all drives. Even HDDs will get a boost.

Ranger4 · 07 Jan 2014

It is also a good idea to run the Samsung Performance Optimisation which will set the SSD trim control which is necessary for SSD's. I have attached a screen shot of the Magician software as well.

Bios settings re new SSD boot drive & MB Sata connectors-magician-software-capture.png

trinaz · 07 Jan 2014

Thanks guys...Changed 3 values in registry as indicated above in
"AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista
By the way, it should be enabled for all drives. Even HDDs will get a boost."

ran bios setup and changed from IDE to AHCI as in sata.jpg attached...when I rebooted....I got the opening error of ..."boot from floppy drive " as in ( mbr error 1 .jpg attached.) No Windows start-up

Had to recover disk thru Acronis backup image of 2 days ago...then reinstall Samsung Magician ? Had previously (befor regedit) ran Samsung Performance Optimization before rebooting and changing AHCI setup...which resulted in boot disk error ?

Any ideas on what I did wrong...and/or how to change the bios Sata setup without loosing Windows reboot ability

Thanks...TiminAz

p.s. AHCI was NOT activated before during or after the original initial install of Win 7 Pro 64bit

carwiz · 07 Jan 2014

You shouldn't have to do anything with "Magician". Windows 7 supports trim commands in native mode for SSDs. I also noticed in that tutorial that it states iastorV. That is the RAID driver and while it supports AHCI along with RAID, iastor is the default AHCI driver unless you have RAID drives. The iastor driver is faster if you don't have RAID drives.

The error message sounds like the driver wasn't loaded. You MUST make the changes in the Registry then reboot so Windows will load the driver BEFORE rebooting again into the BIOS to make the AHCI changes to the drives. You may have to go back into the BIOS and set the drives back to IDE to boot. After that, check to make sure iastor OR iastorV (not both) are loaded by checking the properties of the drive controller. (See Below) If the driver is loaded, then reboot into the BIOS and change the drives to AHCI mode.

trinaz · 07 Jan 2014

Thanks to all who helped...managed to get everything going AOK....ran through a number of operations but probably could never repeat the exact operations and/or order of them.

Not sure about the warning message on performance means....but for now all seems to be going well...

Thanks again to all....!!

TiminAz