AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista

MikeM12345 · 08 Mar 2012

Nope nothing in device manager, I am ready to do a clean install of win 7 with my bios AHCI option enabled.
Any suggestions or tips. As you can tell from my sys spec I am running Asus and AMD

ZaLiTH · 08 Mar 2012

MikeM12345 said:

Nope nothing in device manager, I am ready to do a clean install of win 7 with my bios AHCI option enabled.
Any suggestions or tips. As you can tell from my sys spec I am running Asus and AMD

To be honest, if you enabled AHCI in your BIOS and then managed to boot into Windows without any issues, then I'd say it's working... :/

Another way to check is via the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon in your systray. Using AHCI will enable hot-swap support for all drives in your PC, so you should now see your internal drives in that list as well.

Besides, I highly doubt you'll see enough of an improvement switching to AHCI to warrant a format and reinstall... I posted (earlier in this thread I think) about how I found AHCI to make a bigger difference to drives with more fragmentation due to it's NCQ method of reading/writing data.

Windows7Nubie · 14 Mar 2012

I am just starting out with Win 7 32 bit. Attached are files showing HDTune results for IDE setting and AHCI setting. The IDE setting appears to be faster. It may be that I am not setup right or that my new hardware may have a problem. But if all is okay, take the advice given earlier in the post and stick with IDE for a regular drive.

ZaLiTH · 15 Mar 2012

Windows7Nubie said:

I am just starting out with Win 7 32 bit. Attached are files showing HDTune results for IDE setting and AHCI setting. The IDE setting appears to be faster. It may be that I am not setup right or that my new hardware may have a problem. But if all is okay, take the advice given earlier in the post and stick with IDE for a regular drive.

To quote from an older thread that covered this topic pretty well:

logicearth said:

There is no performance difference to IDE or AHCI because they are only communication protocols. The actual physical SATA connection is what determines the speed. Not whether you are using IDE or AHCI. IDE and AHCI will preform the same because the SATA connection is the same speed regardless.

You can read the thread here if you like, it's a very interesting and informative when it comes to AHCI vs IDE, focussing mainly on the performance side.. :)

ICIT2LOL · 23 Mar 2012

Thanks TBK that was just amazing for an old codger like me - am thinking of slipping an SSD into my Toshiba laptop and was not sure if I could get this going after install.

Wow I shall be able to get rid of all the junk

ICIT2LOL · 24 Mar 2012

One small query I checked in regedit tonight and the ACHI value is set to (3) yet in the BIOS the setting is ACHI .

Now I am a little confused as to which one is correct?

Koyuki · 05 Apr 2012

Oke so I've tried this several times without luck so I decided to register and ask for some help.

1. These are the default settings of my motherboard. Setting the top ''ICH SATA CONTROL MODE'' to AHCI and reboot the following happens:

You can see the HDD listed.. and then a messege that says there is no supported driver, please insert one and press a key...

2. If I set ''ONBOARD SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode to AHCI and leave the top to IDE it does boot (just doesnt find and drives) installs 2 drivers but its still in IDE mode.

3. If I set both settings to AHCI the first thing still happens where I cant boot into windows.

Does anyone have any idea on how to solve this problem? Cheers!

Fejinwales · 08 Apr 2012

These may be a dumb questions but I need to ask them anyway, please forgive my ignorance. I just bought a Cruical SSD which is going to replace the old HDD (C:\) in my PC. I intend to leave the old disk in these but disconnected in case of probs). Anyway.

Is my motherboard - ASUS P6T Deluxe one of those nForce boards?

If I enable AHCI in the BIOS before installing the OS will I still need to do the registry thing or any other settings after install? - I believe not but need to be sure.

Also do I enable AHCI before connecting the SSD or afterwards - but before I begin installation of the OS onto it? (boot into BIOS as soon as it is connected).

Finally, and this is important for me as I get bad luck. Should this SSD fail and I have to revert back to my old HDD (left in there), Will I simply have to go into the BIOS before re-connecting it and enable SATA again? from which point it will boot from the old HDD as before?

Thanks for the time taken to read this.

ICIT2LOL · 08 Apr 2012

Fejinwales said:

These may be a dumb questions but I need to ask them anyway, please forgive my ignorance. I just bought a Cruical SSD which is going to replace the old HDD (C:\) in my PC. I intend to leave the old disk in these but disconnected in case of probs). Anyway.

Is my motherboard - ASUS P6T Deluxe one of those nForce boards?

If I enable AHCI in the BIOS before installing the OS will I still need to do the registry thing or any other settings after install? - I believe not but need to be sure.

Also do I enable AHCI before connecting the SSD or afterwards - but before I begin installation of the OS onto it? (boot into BIOS as soon as it is connected).

Finally, and this is important for me as I get bad luck. Should this SSD fail and I have to revert back to my old HDD (left in there), Will I simply have to go into the BIOS before re-connecting it and enable SATA again? from which point it will boot from the old HDD as before?

Thanks for the time taken to read this.

Hiyya FejinWales welcome:)

Look mate no expert but my BIOS was set to ACHI before with my HDD's and I just left it as is the SSD went perfectly all I had to do was do the firmware update (0309) for the Crucial M4 128GB I put in and again I am no expert but I don't think you would have to reset the BIOS should the SSD fail -it won't mate anyway.

But I guess the real deal fellows will correct me if I am wrong.

Nice to meet someone from the old country too

Fejinwales · 08 Apr 2012

Hi ICit2lol..

G'day mate. OK then, I shall set it to ACHI and do my damnedest to get it working. The reason I was concerned about the SSD failure was that quite a few people had failures with the OCZ drives, a firmware issue apparently when Windows shuts down and tells it to sleep, it stayed asleep and that was that. My nephew suffered this with one of their drives. This is why I could a Crucial as they - seemingly - do not have this issue. But I have shitty luck and if something's gonna go wrong it'll go wrong for me.

I'd love to visit OZ, some of my friends have moved out there, some in Surfers paradise - Gold Coast, one in Rathmines N.S.W, another in Melbourne.

Anyway, thanks for the advice, I am off then to do battle.