How to Switch from IDE to AHCI without repairing/reinstalling windows

By +Warwagon
in Essential Guides

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Grand Master

Steven P. Administrators

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I can't recall having any problems after I changed the registry, in fact I think after a BIOS upgrade the AHCI settings were changed back to IDE and Windows booted fine, I changed it back to AHCI manually afterward.

Grand Master

Steven P. Administrators

Posted
  • Administrators
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They are included in Windows (Intel AHCI drivers) there really isn't a need to install the ones from Intel site or the Motherboard CD, unless you are doing things like RAID etc..

Apprentice

kevpc

Posted
Posted

again, tnx for info. saw elsewhere about these 2 keys. are changes needed to them as well, if they are present? if not present, are they needed? how are they added if missing?

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\servic es\iaStorV

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\servic es\iaStor

Apprentice

kevpc

Posted
Posted

many tnx for your time answering my questions. appologise for being a pain. just trying to ensure that i do all necessary steps without missing anything out (or messing anything up, ha ha!) only 1 sata lll hdd

just checked in regedit and got these:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\servic es\pciide=0

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\servic es\msahci=3

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\servic es\iaStorV=3

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\servic es\iaStor=not present anyway

will change the '3' to '0' for the 2 keys above. assume will just leave the IDE '0' as it is?

Apprentice

kevpc

Posted
Posted

ok. so done as instructed. all went ok as far as i can see. many tnx for help guys. much appreciated. must admit, not seen any change in speed of drive tho'. did see that the system specs not showing at first boot now. only shows the hdd, not even the rom drives. dont know why that is?

other thing is, got a notification in system trya about the hdd now. anyone know how to get rid of that please?

Apprentice

kevpc

Posted
Posted

found the tweak further back in this post. that worked also, so many tnx for the info.

next questions are, if you guys dont mind:

how to tell if the NCQ? is working?

what advantages/disadvantages would there be if i had only changed the PCH SATA Control Mode to AHCI and left the GSATA3 Ctrl Mode and eSATA3 Ctrl Mode at IDE?

Apprentice

kevpc

Posted
Posted

further info guys and more advice needed, please. everything seems to be ok. however, although both my dvd burner and my bluray burner show up under device manager and after opening 'My Computer', they do not show in the left hand pane. is that because of the 3 changes to AHCI from IDE i made, or because of the change to stop the notification showing by the system clock? would like them both to show where they should, so what do i change back to achieve that without affecting the sata lll hdd?

also, since doing the IDE to AHCI change in the bios, ATI works. i thought it was the other way round, ie, had to change to IDE if having problems with ATI. opinions?

  • 1 year later...
Neowinian

enghong

Posted
Posted

My SATA drive was installed with Windows Server 2012 with IDE mode. The blue screen will appear with message:

"Your PC ran into a problem and need to restart. We're just collecting some error info, and then you can restart. If you'd like to know more, you can search online later for this error: INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE"

I did follow the above instruction. But I can not find the "Msahci" on registry. I did created one but the same problem appear. Please advice what else I can do to switch to AHCI.

Thank you.

  • 1 month later...
  • 8 months later...
Neowinian

bigpygme

Posted
Posted

when your directions say "When Windows starts, it will detect the change, load new disk drivers, and do one more reboot to start up with them." , Warwagon, how is Win 7 supposed to find the AHCI drivers to load them ? 

Win 7 does not have native AHCI drivers for lots of MB's ... like my Asus from 2005.  (Hey, it was a VERY nice MB then !! )

 

i shifted the regedit values and changed the BIOS settings from IDE to AHCI.  i also tried the MS Fix-It route.  Nada.  it doesn't have the drivers, so it doesn't see the drives.  i'm quite sure the drivers have to go into Win on install.  (i suppose if i could figure out where in the Win folders they go, i could dump them there ... so i tried that.  put them in System32 and Sys64Wow [or whatever] ... still no go). 

 

i would LOVE to know if i'm missing an easy solution !!  i'm betting i'm not, though ...

 

Michael

Grand Master

Eric Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
  On 10/11/2013 at 20:29, bigpygme said:

when your directions say "When Windows starts, it will detect the change, load new disk drivers, and do one more reboot to start up with them." , Warwagon, how is Win 7 supposed to find the AHCI drivers to load them ? 

Win 7 does not have native AHCI drivers for lots of MB's ... like my Asus from 2005.  (Hey, it was a VERY nice MB then !! )

 

i shifted the regedit values and changed the BIOS settings from IDE to AHCI.  i also tried the MS Fix-It route.  Nada.  it doesn't have the drivers, so it doesn't see the drives.  i'm quite sure the drivers have to go into Win on install.  (i suppose if i could figure out where in the Win folders they go, i could dump them there ... so i tried that.  put them in System32 and Sys64Wow [or whatever] ... still no go). 

 

i would LOVE to know if i'm missing an easy solution !!  i'm betting i'm not, though ...

 

Michael

 

You could force-install the AHCI drivers before switching the BIOS from IDE to AHCI but there is no guarantee your system would boot afterwards. (In other words, attempt at your own risk!)

 

Sometimes this can be accomplished by copying the driver files to the HD, uninstalling the current drivers from Device Manager, then rebooting and pointing the driver prompts at the folder.

  • 2 weeks later...
Neowinian

etonmusikero

Posted
Posted

Hello masters..

 

My rig is running on Win 7.. my motherboard is ASROCK 775Twins 2.0

 

At present, and the only running setup that I have is the ATA Combination Mode: 1 SATA HDD (at SATA 1 only) and 2 IDE Optical Drives (Secondary Master and slave only)

 

Unfortunately, one of my optical drives 'retired' so I bought a new one. I was not aware up until I reached home that what I bought is a SATA optical drive.

 

So I was thinking, if I'm going to add a SATA Optical Drive, ATA Combination Mode will not do the trick. So I disabled this option and

 

76gj.jpg

Neowinian

etonmusikero

Posted
Posted

And set the sata class code to AHCI..

 

Btw, I followed the tweaking that you posted here: regedit then setting the start value for both to 0 zero but to no avail..

 

Next thing I thought off is why not disable the on-board IDE Controller.. Here's what happened:

 

 
0fma.jpg
Neowinian

etonmusikero

Posted
Posted

I really don't know what to do anymore.. I'm thinking of replacing my motherboard.. This motherboard that I have right now used to run on XP.. Am I looking at a compatibility issue here? I don't want to downgrade to XP anymore.

 

Your help would really be appreciated..

 

Thank you!

  • 1 year later...
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