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

 

[Dave76]

Did you try a different driver?

If you installed in AHCI mode, you get the msahci driver, if that's not working for you try the Intel driver if it's an Intel chipset.

 

[Night Hawk]

This one has an AMD chipset on the Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4 model board.

Property Value North Bridge ATI RD780 Revision 00
Property Value South Bridge ATI SB750 Revision 00
Property Value CPU AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 965 Processor
Property Value Cpu Socket Socket AM2+ (940)

Newegg had that listed as an AM3 board while SIW shows something else!

When booting once the reg value was changed the 7 logo is just ended when a quick flash of the large square window with a blue trim appears for a split second before the full restart is seen with no way to pause the system. Windows doesn't load far enough along there to perform a detection process for this board.

 

[Spidey1976]

I've been skimming and searching this tutorial and didn't see this answered yet...

I will be upgrading from Home Premium to Professional soon and plan to do a complete wipe & fresh install of 7 - If I 1) wipe the HDD, 2) enable AHCI in BIOS, and 3) install a fresh copy of Win 7 Pro, will I be fine without any registry workaround? I plan to use the Windows DVD to delete the partitions, but I'm not sure if it still leaves a hidden trace of the previous installation that will mess up AHCI during the fresh install.

Thanks

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello Spidey1976.



If you will have NO DATA on the HDD that you want to save have a look at this tutorial at the link below, it'll show you how to do a secure erase while you do a clean install; you're right enable AHCI in the BIOS first and you won't have to mess around with the registry at all; be sure and keep me informed.


This works for HDDs also.

SSD : Optimize for Windows Re-Installation

 

[Spidey1976]

Not sure now... I did a boot just to see BIOS options and couldn't find anything for AHCI - there is a section to enable RAID. There is a chipset download on ASUS's website for "Make NVIDIA SATA RAID driver disk" and there is also an ATK0110 driver (whatever that is).

Don't know if anyone else has done this with the same board or chipset:

ASUS M2N-SLI (BIOS rev 1003) w/ nVidia nForce 560 (nForce 4 MCP65) chipset

The only BIOS updates since 1003 are betas and it just makes me nervous beta testing a mobo

 

[SJMaye]

Slight snag.

I modified the registry and rebooted without a problem. Then remembered I need to go in to the bios to select AHCI mode. I rebooted to the bios screen. Selected AHCI mode, saved and rebooted.

During the DOS-type screens before Win 7 OS starts loading it has a big list "PCI Devices Listing" screen. My cursor just sat there at the bottom and quit loading. Let it sit there for about 15 minutes and figured something was wrong. Below is a borrowed image off the internet of SOMEONE ELSES computer. Just wanted to be clear where loading stopped.

I tried rebooting a couple times. Same thing. I went back in the bios and disabled AHCI and I am back to where I started.

Any ideas? Do my SATA drives HDD and optical need to have a specific feature to enable AHCI?

 

[ZaLiTH]

Slight snag.

I modified the registry and rebooted without a problem. Then remembered I need to go in to the bios to select AHCI mode. I rebooted to the bios screen. Selected AHCI mode, saved and rebooted.

During the DOS-type screens before Win 7 OS starts loading it has a big list "PCI Devices Listing" screen. My cursor just sat there at the bottom and quit loading. Let it sit there for about 15 minutes and figured something was wrong. Below is a borrowed image off the internet of SOMEONE ELSES computer. Just wanted to be clear where loading stopped.

I tried rebooting a couple times. Same thing. I went back in the bios and disabled AHCI and I am back to where I started.

Any ideas? Do my SATA drives HDD and optical need to have a specific feature to enable AHCI?

You need to change the registry setting, then enable AHCI before Windows starts up again... Otherwise it won't update the drivers correctly to run AHCI mode.

So, try it this way:

1. Edit registry setting.
2. Restart and enter BIOS. Do not let Windows boot yet.
3. Switch to AHCI mode and save settings.
4. Start Windows and wait for drivers to install.
5. Restart one last time to be safe.

That should sort it out nicely for you.

As for any special features required; no, not really... If a drive has a SATA connection, it'll work. The 'features' of AHCI / RAID are handled by the SATA controller anyway (this includes NCQ and hot-swapping support). If your DVD drive is IDE and not SATA, then it'll stay the same as it was, this setting will only affect your SATA connected drives.

 

[SJMaye]

Well HOWDY! Thank you ZaLiTH. I am going to try that out now. Be right back at you with the results.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Slight snag.

I modified the registry and rebooted without a problem. Then remembered I need to go in to the bios to select AHCI mode. I rebooted to the bios screen. Selected AHCI mode, saved and rebooted.

During the DOS-type screens before Win 7 OS starts loading it has a big list "PCI Devices Listing" screen. My cursor just sat there at the bottom and quit loading. Let it sit there for about 15 minutes and figured something was wrong. Below is a borrowed image off the internet of SOMEONE ELSES computer. Just wanted to be clear where loading stopped.

I tried rebooting a couple times. Same thing. I went back in the bios and disabled AHCI and I am back to where I started.

Any ideas? Do my SATA drives HDD and optical need to have a specific feature to enable AHCI?

You need to change the registry setting, then enable AHCI before Windows starts up again... Otherwise it won't update the drivers correctly to run AHCI mode.

So, try it this way:

1. Edit registry setting.
2. Restart and enter BIOS. Do not let Windows boot yet.
3. Switch to AHCI mode and save settings.
4. Start Windows and wait for drivers to install.
5. Restart one last time to be safe.

That should sort it out nicely for you.

As for any special features required; no, not really... If a drive has a SATA connection, it'll work. The 'features' of AHCI / RAID are handled by the SATA controller anyway (this includes NCQ and hot-swapping support). If your DVD drive is IDE and not SATA, then it'll stay the same as it was, this setting will only affect your SATA connected drives.

Thanks for helping out!

 

[SJMaye]

No Cigar. Same thing.

I went back in to regedit and the MSAHCI was still set on 0. Just in case I set it back to 3 and rebooted.

Once in Windows 7 again I went back to regedit and set MSAHCI back to 0 again. Exited and rebooted making sure to catch it this time and go directly to the bios. I set SATA mode to AHCI saved and exited. Rebooted and got the same result. This time I did notice in those DOS-type screens it did mention AHCI. Attached are the screenshots of my HTPC so you can see exactly what I am seeing.

Not sure it matters, but this morning I was looking into my HDD to see if that was the problem. I did note there is a jumper on this drive that keeps it in SATA mode. If removed it goes to SATA II mode. Not sure why I did that seeing at the mobo does support SATA II.

 

[ZaLiTH]

No Cigar. Same thing.

I went back in to regedit and the MSAHCI was still set on 0. Just in case I set it back to 3 and rebooted.

Once in Windows 7 again I went back to regedit and set MSAHCI back to 0 again. Exited and rebooted making sure to catch it this time and go directly to the bios. I set SATA mode to AHCI saved and exited. Rebooted and got the same result. This time I did notice in those DOS-type screens it did mention AHCI. Attached are the screenshots of my HTPC so you can see exactly what I am seeing.

Not sure it matters, but this morning I was looking into my HDD to see if that was the problem. I did note there is a jumper on this drive that keeps it in SATA mode. If removed it goes to SATA II mode. Not sure why I did that seeing at the mobo does support SATA II.

As I was reading your last post, the first thought that came to mind was "flash your BIOS with a later ervision", but looking at the product info page (ASRock > Products > P55 Pro; this is your board right?), I see this in the list of connectors:

- 6 x SATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, RAID 5 and Intel® Matrix Storage), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug functions

So I highly doubt that would be an issue....

Other than that, I can't say I've tried running a drive with AHCI mode while it's restricted to SATA 1.5G/s speeds... If your drive has that jumper, I'd suggest taking it off regardless.

On that line of thought though, perhaps restricting the drive to SATA-I instead of SATA-II might be causing an issue? I can't say for sure though, and my Windows 7 PC is at home (I'm at work) so I can't test on mine to see if it is an issue.

By the way, what drives do you actually have connected at the moment? I'm not sure what you use, but I like using Speccy to get information on PC hardware.

 

[SJMaye]

Orry about that. The ASRock is on my desktop. The computer we are talking about ehre is my HTPC. The motherboard is a Gigabyte MA-965P-DS3 rev 3.3. The SATA sockets on the motherboard are SATA II. Or at least they are labeled that way and the documentation states they are SATA II.

I will try removing the jumper and see what we have.

 

[SJMaye]

Jumper gone. Reboot with AHCI enabled. Same thing.

I did notcie something however, I doubt there is any relationship between PCI Devices Listing an this issue. I noticed when I put it back to IDE mode and it was booting fine it went through the PCI Devices Listing. There were no additional devices listed. Same devices same amount as when trying to boot in the AHCI mode. That was the bottom of the list just before it asks if you want to boot from DVD press any key.

So it seems the hang up is something about that.

BTW- Anyway to check in Win7 whether that drive is now running in SATAII mode?

 

[ZaLiTH]

Orry about that. The ASRock is on my desktop. The computer we are talking about ehre is my HTPC.

Ah, ok.. I did see you mention an HTPC, but I must admit I was a bit confused.. However:

Jumper gone. Reboot with AHCI enabled. Same thing.

That really sucks...

I did notcie something however, I doubt there is any relationship between PCI Devices Listing an this issue. I noticed when I put it back to IDE mode and it was booting fine it went through the PCI Devices Listing. There were no additional devices listed. Same devices same amount as when trying to boot in the AHCI mode. That was the bottom of the list just before it asks if you want to boot from DVD press any key.

So it seems the hang up is something about that.

Just to confirm, is Windows 7 booting off a SATA drive? Do you have any IDE drives in your HTPC?


Edit: Another point to keep in mind, and I don't think it's been mentioned here yet... When you switch from one mode to another (IDE / SATA / AHCI / RAID) you will need to check your drive boot settings; I'm not saying it's definitely the problem, but is it not maybe something like your motherboard trying to boot off a drive other than the one with Windows 7 on it? Sometimes the simple things get overlooked...

 

[Everlong]

Not sure now... I did a boot just to see BIOS options and couldn't find anything for AHCI - there is a section to enable RAID. There is a chipset download on ASUS's website for "Make NVIDIA SATA RAID driver disk" and there is also an ATK0110 driver (whatever that is).

Don't know if anyone else has done this with the same board or chipset:

ASUS M2N-SLI (BIOS rev 1003) w/ nVidia nForce 560 (nForce 4 MCP65) chipset

The only BIOS updates since 1003 are betas and it just makes me nervous beta testing a mobo

You'll need to refer to my second post here http://www.sevenforums.com/711504-post1.html. That's the closest you can get to doing this with nForce motherboards unfortunatley.

 

[SJMaye]

The HTPC is pretty simple. Currently only 1 HDD and 1 DVD drive. Both are SATA. Once I have this working I have a second driver to add for dedicated HTPC recording space.

 

[Spidey1976]

Not sure now... I did a boot just to see BIOS options and couldn't find anything for AHCI - there is a section to enable RAID. There is a chipset download on ASUS's website for "Make NVIDIA SATA RAID driver disk" and there is also an ATK0110 driver (whatever that is).

Don't know if anyone else has done this with the same board or chipset:

ASUS M2N-SLI (BIOS rev 1003) w/ nVidia nForce 560 (nForce 4 MCP65) chipset

The only BIOS updates since 1003 are betas and it just makes me nervous beta testing a mobo

You'll need to refer to my second post here http://www.sevenforums.com/711504-post1.html. That's the closest you can get to doing this with nForce motherboards unfortunatley.

Thanks for the heads up - I'll give it a shot soon

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Not sure now... I did a boot just to see BIOS options and couldn't find anything for AHCI - there is a section to enable RAID. There is a chipset download on ASUS's website for "Make NVIDIA SATA RAID driver disk" and there is also an ATK0110 driver (whatever that is).

Don't know if anyone else has done this with the same board or chipset:

ASUS M2N-SLI (BIOS rev 1003) w/ nVidia nForce 560 (nForce 4 MCP65) chipset

The only BIOS updates since 1003 are betas and it just makes me nervous beta testing a mobo

You'll need to refer to my second post here http://www.sevenforums.com/711504-post1.html. That's the closest you can get to doing this with nForce motherboards unfortunatley.

Thanks for the heads up - I'll give it a shot soon

Remember to post back so we know how it sorts out.

 

[Spidey1976]

Everything worked as laid out in the tutorial (except that only 2 were nVidia - the 3rd was already standard IDE) - no change noticed - WEI score stayed at 5.9 - at least it worked without problems

Thanks all!!

 

[Everlong]

Everything worked as laid out in the tutorial (except that only 2 were nVidia - the 3rd was already standard IDE) - no change noticed - WEI score stayed at 5.9 - at least it worked without problems

Thanks all!!

Good to hear!