AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista

ZaLiTH · 23 Oct 2011

cabelo3d said:

Then, I'll use the OS to work and I'll have:

...

When I change in Bios from RAID to IDE, I'll boot to another OS, which I use only for gaming and I'll have:

...

Ah, yeah I do see what you mean now.. If that's the case, then as you currently switch between RAID and IDE modes, you would instead end up switching between RAID and AHCI.

In this case, whatever you change here shouldn't affect your work (RAID) copy of Windows, only the gaming (non-RAID) instance. Only thing that I can think might cause a problem is the boot order. Not sure if all boards do this, but on my XFX 750a, each time I changed the SATA mode on my drive controller it would either forget or simply reset my drive boot order... :/

On a slightly different note: Don't you think it would be simpler to leave the controller set to RAID mode all the time and set up a dual-boot between the two instances of Windows? That would probably make life a lot easier in the long run.

cabelo3d · 23 Oct 2011

Yes, definitely when I switch from Raid to IDE the order of the hard drives changes too.. I didn't thought about that tho. I'll try to boot into the gaming system now with AHCI enabled and see.

Also, I haven't used a dual boot due a lack of knowledge to set it, to be honest.

I'm using about 250mb or less in the work system and the raid has 1tb.
If I could use the raid hard drives to have a dual boot system and a partition with a gaming operation system, life really would be easy, games would run faster and plus, the drive I'm actually using as a dual partitioned drive would be used as a game storage hd.

Can you point me how can I manage to achieve that? I'm willing to try it. despite the hassle of reformat everything again.

ZaLiTH · 23 Oct 2011

There is a tutorial here on SevenForums that covers Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP; maybe you could cover the steps to prepare for dual boot from the 'Win7 Installed First' section, then continue with the second OS installation from the 'XP Installed First' section.

Most tutorials cover dual booting two separate operating systems, but as far as the steps in one OS are concerned, you're simply installing another OS, whichever OS that is doesn't really matter (only exceptions would be different partition types for things like Linux or OSX).

Anyway, it's just gone 11pm this side of the world and I need some sleep, so I'll only be able to reply again in the morning.. If you get stuck though, there are lots of friendly helpful users around here. :)

cabelo3d · 23 Oct 2011

Thanks bro!

I'll take a look at the tutorial, take some time to decide and I'll report back.
Appreciated your help.

Dave76 · 24 Oct 2011

Have you tried leaving your system in RAID and selecting your Boot option, usually F12 depending on your system, to select the other OS hard drive?

When you start your computer, the BIOS screen will give you an option on the bottom of the screen 'Boot Options' or 'Boot Menu' or something similar, just select/press the key indicated repeatedly until the boot option menu comes up and then select the other OS HDD.

RAID has all of the benefits of AHCI, and you don't need to have any HDDs in RAID to use it.

Try this and let us know the results.

cabelo3d · 24 Oct 2011

I have an Evga x58 sli micro board and pressing Esc you'll go to the hard drive selection screen. I've selected the Gaming HD with Raid set in the Bios, but it reboots the pc and once it reboots it automatically enters in the Work HD, the ones that already work as Raid.

When I set in the Bios, the disks to have a different order, the Game HD as first, Windows asks to launch a repair. So what do I need to do now? Leave windows do the repair thing?

When I set the Game HD to be the first I got a blue screen. Even put 0 instead 3 in the registry.

Dave76 · 30 Oct 2011

When you change the registry setting from 3 to 0, then on the next boot the OS (GameHD) should d/l and install the RAID drivers.
After the first re-boot, when it loads the RAID drivers, you need to re-boot again when they finish loading.

When you get both OSs set to RAID you won't have to change the BIOS IDE/RAID setting anymore.

If you want a Dual boot option when starting your computer, then run the 'Startup Repair' 3 times, this give you the option to select the OS when you boot up.
If you want to use the F12 key during bootup to select the OS you want then don't run 'Startup Repair'.

brownix · 30 Oct 2011

umm i dont know much about my computer after looking into all this
i have a 2x500gb and i think its a raid
how can i be sure?
and when i went to change the number to 0 it was already 0, so wat does that mean?

Dave76 · 02 Nov 2011

If the registry is already set to 0, then you are in AHCI mode already.

Go to the Dell support site, enter your Service tag number, it should tell you if it is setup in RAID.

killbox · 12 Nov 2011

I'm having problem getting the ahci to work. The register showed 0 all ready, but when I change to achi in bios and boot up it turns to bsod and boot loop.