AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista

Are you using an NVidia nForce main-board?

shanouser said:

As stated before: Intel ICH8M mobile chipset on Dell Latitude D830 laptop.

Sorry mate, you did, didn't you; I'm fresh out of ideas, keep checking back though as someone may come up with a solution for you at any time.

Have you communicated with Dell?

shanouser said:

Ok, I did change the 3 keys - Msahci, IAstor, IAstorV 'start' value to 0, but after restarting and enabling the AHCI mode from BIOS, I still got the BSOD with 000007b error.
The system is Dell Latitude D830 laptop with ICH8M chipset.
Any ideas?

shanouser said:

Still no luck.
Changing the msahci key value to 0 does NOT fix the issue.
I still get BSOD with 0x0000007B INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE error when I enable the AHCI mode from the BIOS.
Any other ideas?

shanouser said:

As stated before: Intel ICH8M mobile chipset on Dell Latitude D830 laptop.

Hi shanouser,

Did you follow the tutorial exactly?
There is an additional re-boot at the end, also try another re-boot to confirm that the driver installed.

Be sure to make an image backup of everything before trying to change the registry and loading the AHCI driver. The other alternative is to be prepared to do a clean install, if you have to do it this way, set your bios to AHCI before the install.

Next option is to D/L the latest AHCI driver from Dell for your laptop, make the registry change, install the Dell driver, then continue with step #4. Be sure to do the extra re-boot.

Another option is to D/L the ICH8M driver from Intel, be sure to get the correct driver. Continue as above with Step #4.

If you still have trouble, check the Dell site for an updated BIOS for your Latitude D830. Be aware of the possible problems when updating your BIOS, the worst case is bricking your laptop.
Then try again with the Dell driver and Intel driver as mentioned above.

I did manage to change my Dell desktop and S17 laptop without the registry edit, by installing the new driver, when asked to re-boot, immediately go to the BIOS and change to AHCI, start normally, re-boot again. This may work for you, but if it didn't work with the registry edit then it likely won't.

Let us know if you get it changed, or have any questions.

Buggsy2 said:

Just found this and have a question, what about a computer which BIOS does not have the AHCI option?

Hello Buggsy2, welcome to Seven Forums!


In that case it's not possible to enable AHCI for that PC.

Bare Foot Kid said:

   Information

Just to put in here for nForce users, nForce boards do not support AHCI (with the exception of nForce boards that include onboard graphic cards), and also don't send the TRIM command for SSDs. It can do NCQ through its controller though. The JMicron SATA ports do support AHCI, but you'd get worse performance running a HDD through these, than on the normal SATA ports.

You can uninstall the Nvidia controller though in Device Manager and install Microsoft's IDE Controller, which can send TRIM commands for SSDs.

Head to Device Manager (Open Start menu, type Device Manager), and click "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers", and you will see 3 Nvidia Serial ATA Controllers. Right click one of them and click "Properties" and go to the "Driver" tab. Click "Update Driver". Click "Browse my Computer", and then "Let me pick". You will see the option to choose "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller". Click this and click "Next" and let it install.

Do the same for the other two Nvidia Controllers in Device Manager and restart your system. After the controllers have installed, you will be asked to reboot again.

SSDs will now have a slight performance boost with the TRIM command, and also regular HDDs also have a slight increase as well.

I have an nForce board; the 650i. Problem is, when I go to device manager, there are no nVidia sections under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers. They are under Storage Controllers! Look at my screenshot! How can I correct this?

Try installing the latest nForce drivers first from the Nvidia website. This will install the Nvidia Storage Controllers for you :)