HOWTO: enable AHCI mode after installing Windows

[sudhirks]

hi,

its not working on "Intel(R) ICH10D/DO SATA AHCI Controller"

i m trying on LENOVO M58p MODEL, I Have disabled ahci and raid from bios and installed winxp, then i tried to enable AHCI mode as per the method you have suggested but didnt worked.

swiched to AHCI from bios again same blue screen, hdd not detecting

Any solution????

[0pTicaL]

Does the registry hack work with Vista Ultimate 64-bit?

Running Gigabyte UD3R ICH10R (F9 bios)

Hi.

first a BIG thank you to Ned Slider. I worked for a day for the solution itself. But my Problem was that I needed RAID, not AHCI. I was lucky, because i had a similiar Computer with the same type of RAID allready working. So i took the informations from the running system with RAID, and recreated the registry file of Ned Slider

AHCI.reg (Original of Ned Slider)

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_8086&dev_2922&cc_0106]
"Service"="iaStor"
"ClassGUID"="{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor]
"Type"=dword:00000001
"Start"=dword:00000000
"Group"="SCSI miniport"
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"ImagePath"="system32\\drivers\\iaStor.sys"
"tag"=dword:00000019
"DisplayName"="Intel AHCI Controller"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters]
"queuePriorityEnable"=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Enum]
"0"="PCI\\VEN_8086&DEV_2922&SUBSYS_B0051458&REV_02\\3&13c0b0c5&0&FA"
"Count"=dword:00000001
"NextInstance"=dword:00000001

RAID.reg (recreated)

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_8086&dev_2822&cc_0104]
"Service"="iaStor"
"ClassGUID"="{4D36E97B-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor]
"Type"=dword:00000001
"Start"=dword:00000000
"Group"="SCSI miniport"
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"ImagePath"="system32\\drivers\\iaStor.sys"
"tag"=dword:00000019
"DisplayName"="Intel RAID Controller"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters]
"queuePriorityEnable"=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Enum]
"0"="PCI\\VEN_8086&DEV_2822&SUBSYS_4F4A8086&REV_02\\3&61aaa01&0&FA"
"Count"=dword:00000001
"NextInstance"=dword:00000001

U need to delete the reg key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor first, before u install the raid.reg

Oh, and the Hardware Information: a intel DQ35JO Mainboard, with a ICH9DO

So Far
- Johannes M.

Okay, I just found that post regarding RAID by Johannes M.

I'm assuming that's what I need to do for RAID?

[d0nut]

Just thought I would share my experience getting AHCI working on Windows Home Server. Motherboard is an ich10 board. Essentially loaded the OS with the bios set to IDE. Once system was up, took the intel storage works drivers and extracted them using the -a switch. Once extracted, went in to device manager, IDE ATA/ATAPI drives, went to the properties of the system controller, selected update driver, told Windows I would select the driver and to show me all drivers, selected the one for my board and Windows did the install. Rebooted, went into the BIOS and set the SATA interface to AHCI, and then Windows discovered all other drives connected to the SATA ports, rebooted again and was good to go.

Hope this helps.

[oralpain]

Just thought I would share my experience getting AHCI working on Windows Home Server. Motherboard is an ich10 board. Essentially loaded the OS with the bios set to IDE. Once system was up, took the intel storage works drivers and extracted them using the -a switch. Once extracted, went in to device manager, IDE ATA/ATAPI drives, went to the properties of the system controller, selected update driver, told Windows I would select the driver and to show me all drivers, selected the one for my board and Windows did the install. Rebooted, went into the BIOS and set the SATA interface to AHCI, and then Windows discovered all other drives connected to the SATA ports, rebooted again and was good to go.

Hope this helps.

Posted 15 months ago about essentially the same method, which as so far worked on every ICH9 and ICH10 board I've tried it on, from a DFI Blood Iron to a few X58 boards.

I found a much simpler way, for me at least, to go from IDE to AHCI.

All I had to do was go to device manager, find the standard dual channel ide controler my harddrives were connected to, update driver, and force it to choose the Intel SATA AHCI Controler. Upon reboot, before allowing it to go to windows I went into the BIOS and switched over to AHCI mode.

Everything booted up fine, redetected my drives, and after another reboot it was done. Took maybe 180 seconds total.

[utorrent12]

Hey, i've just bought Toshiba L305-S5919 laptop that came with vista home pre-installed, but the problem is that i want to downgrade it to XP but because of the SATA hd i cannot do that, so there are two options whether to slipstream sata drivers into xp disk or disable the AHCI to enable IDE mode, so i want to ask u are there any consequences in disabling AHCI and changing to IDE mode plzzz reply fast

[amitsehgal112]

my laptop is acer aspire 4736
with specifications:
core2duo 2.0ghz t6400 2MBL2Cache
intel(r) ICH9M/M-E 4 port serial ATA storage controller
3GB DDR3 RAM
hitachi hard drive
windows xp professional sp2
i have SATA_Intel_8.0.0.1039_XPx86XPx64_IMSI driver with myself
i just wanted to ask will this fix work for activating AHCI mode on my laptop or i have to make any changes in ahci.reg file.

[bruhthakuga]

Is there another way to get my second sata hdd to hot swap? I threw my FD cable away.

[wildguy2k]

Will this work on a AMD platform??

780g pro/sb700?

Thanks

The procedure should work, provided you use the correct drivers (easy) & create an appropriate .reg file (not so easy). I'd be interested in the .reg settings if anyone can get it working.

[pcsupp999]

Ok. I posted already here some months ago.

Now I got the solution. I didn't even try very hard to integrate AHCI-support into my installed XP64.

I just took a version in which AHCI is already integrated for my ICH9-Intel-DP35DP board, an XP64 with integrated SP2. From the moment on where I put the CD in I set the BIOS to AHCI, and unlike the straight, incomplete normal XP64 from Microshit, it also boots after copying the files - its even a totally unattended install, all installs without ONE question to the user, BIG thx here to the scene that did this.

All one needs to know is that with SP2 on XP64, you need the service TCPIPNETBIOSHelper for LAN-Access, not only the service WORKSTATION. Without XP64 SP2, with just XP64 SP1, you don't need the Netbios service.

Without it running with SP2, you JUST DONT get access to your own LAN, if you got one.

I had a repeated bluescreen in my new XP64 SP2, gonna post it if it keeps appearing. I did a registry mechanic cleanup and some other cleanups, I hope its gone.

Important are also the security policies on secpol.msc. You just set the clients to what the server is having as options. Guest account has to be on in order to read the LAN. Encrypting when possible, not always. Logging on as guest.

until now no bluescreen, but it only comes after some 1 or 2 hours. SO, I keep pressing my thumbs...

I saw on the bluescreen something like nv4disp.dll. So, I took out the integrated drivers from Nvidia in my special xp64, and installed the newest 190ers. Bluescreen gone, pc stable for now some 5 hours.
EDIT2: Bluescreen kept coming just now after some 7 hours of stable running - meaning the whole thing is NOT stable . First, I installed the intel drivers from my cd, THEN I downloaded the intel inf updater and did that. Will have to do a fresh install...

EDIT3: I am happy - BECAUSE OF THE SCENE and not because of stupid Intel-Schmintel:

Turns out the bluescreen I had ONLY occurred when opening Sandboxie, in which a virus must have resided - apparently, ONLY deleting the content AND rebooting and deleting AGAIN helps, also kill all tasks in sandboxie helps. Until now, for some 2 days, I had no bluescreen.

This means my optimized alternative XP64 works a lot faster than the normal one (services are already cvut down a lot and a lot of other stuff like all necessary stuff installs by itself without asking), and IS stable. It includes not only SP2, but also AHCI-drivers for ICH9. That is JUST GREAT. THX 2 DA SCENE.

(Whoever HAS XP already deserves a better alternative than his normal install cd from microshmuck)

[wiininjas]

i just wanted to say thank you, like a million times, but i dont think it will let me post that but seriously probably the best tutorial ive had the privilege of finding. you saved me like 3-4 hours as i had already installed everything back on my computer (from installers on a dvd) and really did not want to have to install the os and everything else again, as the second step in my project is installing windows 7 thank you very very very much, even a noob like me was able to read the post here and figure out how to edit the reg file to make it work.

[Jayme Bentes]

Why AHCI ?
Well, I have an ASUS M3N-HD/HDMI mobo, with AMD processor and nVidia chipset. This mobo comes with 4 SATA ports, that supports IDE/AHCI/RAID mode plus 2 SATA ports that supports only AHCI/RAID mode. I have 3 SATA HDDs plus one SATA DVD plugged in. My older IDE DVD driver don't works with Vista neither Windows 7. Recentily, I bought a new one SATA DVD, to copy DVDs "in flight" (directly from one unit to another, without writing a image file in the HDD). So, I need the extra SATA port, and this implies to use AHCI mode for all them.
My main OS is Windows XP SP3 Professional, where I have lots of programs installed. I don't want to reinstall all this stuff!
I have Windows 7 installed as a second OS choice, for test and evaluation.
Changing the BIOS settings from IDE to AHCI works fine with Windows 7. It has the necessary support to SATA AHCI mode...but fails with Windows XP, that lacks the driver needed to nVidia SATA controller. The driver that comes in ASUS Install Disk didn't works, or I was unable to do it works.
My question is: How to install AHCI driver support to Windows XP, with nVidia chipset, without re-installing the Windows XP again ? Any advice ?

[stargate]

Not sure if this has been posted before, but I managed to successfully enable AHCI mode after installing Windows. Here's how...

AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) is present on newer Intel chipsets such as 975X (ICH7), P965 (ICH8), and P35 (ICH9). AHCI mode is enabled in the BIOS and 3 settings are commonly available: IDE, AHCI, and RAID. The last two (AHCI and RAID) require a driver floppy and the F6 method when installing Windows XP otherwise the hard disks won't be detected.

AHCI mode brings 3 main advantages:

1. Supports NCQ (Native Command Queuing) allowing SATA drives to accept more than one command at a time and dynamically reorder the commands for maximum efficiency.
2. Supports hot plugging of devices
3. Supports staggered spin ups of multiple hard drives at boot time

[/CODE]

Will the REG work for a;
GIGABYTE GA-MA790XT-UD4P AM3 running Win7.

I just want hot swapping for my removable bays and I don't want to re-install Win7 unless absolutely necessary.

thanks.

[mmettin]

Will the REG work for a;
GIGABYTE GA-MA790XT-UD4P AM3 running Win7.

I just want hot swapping for my removable bays and I don't want to re-install Win7 unless absolutely necessary.

thanks.

Just "flip the switch" in bios...win 7 will support AHCI natively...

No need for a reinstall

[Sparks]

If anyone is interested in how to enable it for Windows 7 then look here.
It worked fine for me (official release version).

[Mjölnir]

My question is: How to install AHCI driver support to Windows XP, with nVidia chipset, without re-installing the Windows XP again ? Any advice ?

As I mentioned on the first page, I've found that it can be done if there is more than one SATA controller. Load Windows off one of the controllers while it is in legacy mode (eg. IDE mode, not RAID or AHCI) and switch the other controller to AHCI. When Windows starts, it will ask for the AHCI driver for the other controller. Install that, shut down the PC and put the HDD onto the AHCI controller.

The only catch is that when you enable the second controller (eg. SiS, Marvell, etc.), you might need to boot into Windows under legacy mode with the first controller and install SATA/IDE mode drivers for the second controller before you can boot Windows off that second controller.