AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista

Dave76 · 21 Jun 2010

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 · 21 Jun 2010

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 · 29 Jun 2010

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 · 29 Jun 2010

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 · 29 Jun 2010

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 · 30 Jun 2010

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 · 30 Jun 2010

SJMaye said:

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:

Edit registry setting.
Restart and enter BIOS. Do not let Windows boot yet.
Switch to AHCI mode and save settings.
Start Windows and wait for drivers to install.
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 · 30 Jun 2010

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

Bare Foot Kid · 30 Jun 2010

ZaLiTH said:

SJMaye said:

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:

Edit registry setting.
Restart and enter BIOS. Do not let Windows boot yet.
Switch to AHCI mode and save settings.
Start Windows and wait for drivers to install.
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 · 30 Jun 2010

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.