Can't get AHCI to work

robmar0se

The 2 main advantages of AHCI over IDE are hot swap and NCQ, if the drive supports NCQ, and should be faster;

Toxteth_OGrady

LucianH wrote: »

I'm about to try to do the same on an Asus P8Z77-V mobo (either this weekend or next). From what I've read, you should only need the drivers for Win XP and not for Win 7. I'll let you know how I get on.

I can confirm this is the case. There is a native Microsoft AHCI driver in Win 7 that definitely works on Intel and Marvell SATA controllers. I have a Crucial C300 on a Marvell controller on one machine and MSAHCI gives better performance than the OEM driver.

LucianH

LucianH wrote: »

I'm about to try to do the same on an Asus P8Z77-V mobo (either this weekend or next). From what I've read, you should only need the drivers for Win XP and not for Win 7. I'll let you know how I get on.

OK, I've just been playing with my PC for the first time and been trying a few things.

All I've tried to do so far is to install XP Pro. The immediate problem is the install produces a BSOD. The P8Z77-V Pro mobo defaults to AHCI. When I change the BIOS SATA setting to IDE then the Install progresses OK.

So, I now have to work out how to install XP with AHCI enabled (unfortunately, the BIOS only seems to be able to select the mode for all drives - can't individually set it up only one drive as IDE).

There's an addendum that's come with the manual:

ASUS Motherboard SATA Mode Notice

The SATA ports of this motherboard is configured to AHCI mode by default to enhance the SATA performance.

Operating Systems not running on Microsoft Windows will not support devices such as the optical disk drives. Please use compatible operation system for fully hardware support.

For Windows® XP operating system, please load the lnteI® PCH Driver with a USB floppy disk drive during the OS installation. Refer to the section of Creating a RAID driver disk in Chapter 4 of your motherboard user manual for details.


Installing AHCI driver in Windows® XP

To install the AHCI driver in Windows® XP:

1. During the OS installation, the system prompts you to press the F6 key to install third-party SCSI or RAID driver.
2. Press <F6>, and then insert the floppy disk with the AHCI driver into the floppy disk drive.
3. When prompted to select the SCSI adapter to install, ensure that you select lnteI®7 Series! C216 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller.
4. Follow the succeeding screen instructions to complete the installation.

For Windows® 7 OS, you can install the proper driver from the motherboard support DVD after OS installation for better compatibility.

The manual says you have to use a USB Floppy Drive - now the problem I've got is that I don't have a USB Floppy drive. I have a USB CD drive and plenty of Pen Drives - does any body know if I can use either of those or any other ideas? I don't fancy the hassle of getting a USB floppy (not so much cost - just time and hassle - want to do stuff this weekend). So any ideas - can I burn a CD that makes a USB CD drive look like a USB floppy or can I do something with a Pen drive to make it look like a USB floppy that the boot loaded will recognise?

Toxteth_OGrady

[STRIKE]IIRC when you get to the F6 Raid/SATA driver install you can browse to the driver files on a CD (not 100% sure cos it's been a while).[/STRIKE]

This might help:

http://www.prime-expert.com/articles/a01/installing-windows-xp-with-f6-ahci-raid-drivers-from-dvd-without-floppy-drive.php

Richie-from-the-Boro

#11 ""what real performance or other advantages do you get using AHCI over IDE?""

- overall speed
- SATA II drives vary [5,400 RPM and 10,000 RPM] and are rated at 3.0Gbps but you will be lucky to get 1Gbps/s
- a decent older 3gbps or the newer 6Gbps SSD will give close to its promised speed, so it will completely blow away a HDD

#13 as Toxteth_OGrady states there's a perfectly good driver set in a Win7 ' clean install' you shouldn't need any other driver
- 'clean install' is the very LOUD hint

#14 ""USB Floppy Drive""

- your MOBO BIOS should offer USB BOOT in different flavors USBHDD / USBDVD / etc - it will see a USB stick as a HDD anyway
- USB installs Win7SP1 in a fraction of the time that a spinning disk will .. .. just make a USB stick installer
- Microsoft have their own stick-maker called """Windows7-USB-DVD-tool""" - only works with a virgin Microsoft disk - get it
- a BIOS does not / can not give AHCi and SATA / IDE for individual different drives, and why would it ?
- put a clean of Win7SP1 on then install the Acronis OS Selector which is part of Acronis® Disk Director®
- Acronis OS Selector works safe & solid as a multi-boot, then stick your WinXP on the end of a~n~other cable and it will find it and boot from it - sorted

NOTE : I'm assuming at 50p per Gig you have WinXP on a separate drive .. .. if you are asking about WinXP-OS multiboot on the same drive as your Win7-OS .. .. ask the fairies

LucianH

:dance: SORTED :dance:

Up at the crack of dawn this morning and have been going round in circles trying to sort this! But have finally managed to get XP Pro (SP3) loaded onto my new system with AHCI enabled.

Totally failed to get the drivers loaded using the F6 floppy boot option of the setup. I did manage to create a "floppy emulation" on a pen drive using FlashBoot but couldn't actually get the setup to recognise the F6 key!

So gave up and attempted to create a slipstreamed install CD with nLite. This ended up being a really simple process and the resulting install of XP Pro was faultless.

For those interested, this is the process I went through:

I first download the SATA driver files from the ASUS website. In my case, the driver was:

Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology Driver Software V11.1.0.1006 for Windows XP/7 32bit & 64bit.(WHQL) Intel(R) AHCI/RAID Driver for Windows XP/7 32bit & 64bit. 2012.04.13 update

One of the folders of this download is "Driver\Disk\32bit" which contains the driver files (the ones that are needed to be on the floppy if you can get the F6 install to work).

I used the v1.4.9.1 version of nLite. When you run this you simply put in your XP Install CD and point nLite at it when asked. You then click through a few steps and you're presented with a Task Selection page in which you select "Integrate Drivers" and "Create Bootable ISO".

To "Insert" the drivers, you point at one of the inf files in the "Driver\Disk\32bit" folder and then just click through the steps to create a bootable CD. As I stepped through this, I was presented with a whole list of driver options and, to my relief, the "lnteI®7 Series! C216 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller" was listed as described in the addendum to the mobo manual (shown in post #14 above).

And that's all there was to it - the installation of the extra driver was totally transparent during the install. Would be interested to know this would work for you, thor - as long as you know exactly what driver. Although this link (from nLite) may help

So, now I know I can install XP. The next step is to attempt the dual boot (Well actually, it's going to be a tripple boot - Win7 Pro 64bit, Win XP, and Ubuntu)! May have to roll into next weekend with that though!:)

For info, my set up is:
- ASUS P8Z77-v Pro mobo
- Crucial M4 SSD 128g for Win 7
- SanDisk Extreme SSD 120G partitioned for XP and Ubuntu

thor

LucianH wrote: »

:dance: SORTED :dance:

Would be interested to know this would work for you, thor - as long as you know exactly what driver. Although this link (from nLite) may help

Luckily for me, my bios defaults to IDE so I could install xp without AHCI being set. This means I am unable to run it in AHCI mode but it is a sacrifice I am prepared to take for now. I'll have a go at getting those sata drivers for xp to see if I can get them installed later.

thor

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

#13 as Toxteth_OGrady states there's a perfectly good driver set in a Win7 ' clean install' you shouldn't need any other driver
- 'clean install' is the very LOUD hint

I did a clean install of Win 7 on my drive and it does not work. It is part of a dual boot but I can't see that making a difference as I get the dual boot screen up before it crashes. If only I could install the win 7 driver.

Richie-from-the-Boro

- assuming you set the BIOS


- and your BIOS Rev is up~to~date as you say in an earlier #

- unplug all unnecessary other IDE / SATA / DVD's etc

- try installing the OS in IDE mode instead. Then switch back to AHCI mode, it will be comparatively dog slow - but does it work ?

- are you plugged into drive 0? try connecting the drive to a different colored SATA connector on the motherboard

NOTE: you did not do a clean install, a clean install is not part of any dual anything, a clean install is just that .. .. an install with no other unnecessary influences on the HAL. Why don't you just pull the other drive temporarily and try the 'clean' install - you can always plug it back in later with nothing lost ! - it only costs 4 minutes with a USB install and 8 minutes with a slow DVD jobbie

thor

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

- assuming you set the BIOS


- and your BIOS Rev is up~to~date as you say in an earlier #

- unplug all unnecessary other IDE / SATA / DVD's etc

- try installing the OS in IDE mode instead. Then switch back to AHCI mode, it will be comparatively dog slow - but does it work ?

IDE mode is what I have been using for my new system already as it worked while AHCI didn't.

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

- are you plugged into drive 0? try connecting the drive to a different colored SATA connector on the motherboard

Don't have a drive 0 - My lowest one is drive 1 and that is the one I have been using.

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

NOTE: you did not do a clean install, a clean install is not part of any dual anything, a clean install is just that .. .. an install with no other unnecessary influences on the HAL. Why don't you just pull the other drive temporarily and try the 'clean' install - you can always plug it back in later with nothing lost ! - it only costs 4 minutes with a USB install and 8 minutes with a slow DVD jobbie

I think I must have got my definitions mixed up as I just assumed any install which is not an upgrade and is installed in to it's own partition alone is a clean one.
I only have the one hard drive at the moment and although it is hosting both op systems, they are on separate partitions so should not interfere with each other. In any case, when I tried booting off the windows 7 installation dvd this failed in ahci mode as well so I am doubting the fault lies with having two op systems connected to the motherboard as the dvd drive was the sole drive connected to it.