AHCI on Windows XP CD: How?

Cannibal Corpse

Cannibal Corpse

[H]ard|Gawd
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Sep 22, 2002
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Hello All,
I have a WD 36GB Raptor hard drive, and I recently purchased a 4th gen i5 with ASRock H87M Pro4 motherboard. I am trying to install Windows XP on this hard drive (for retro and emulation gaming connected to a secondary true 15KHz RGB arcade monitor, which must have XP).

If I replace the AHCI to IDE in BIOS, the Windows installation does not generate a blue screen and it progresses forward, but the strange thing is when the installation finishes and I want to put the computer in the standby mode, I get a message:

"the device driver for the 'Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System' device is preventing the machine from entering standby."

that a driver does not allow this. I have torn apart and almost removed and uninstalled everything thinking that they might be culprit but I still get this message and Windows refuses to hibernate (even tried dumppo and it didn't work).

Now I realized that maybe it is the AHCI setting that needs to be ON when I install Windows XP. The thing is, when I replace IDE with AHCI, I get the dreaded 0x0000007b error. I even slipstream the SATA drivers from the motherboard DVD into the XP ISO image, but I still get the blue screen.

questions:
How can I have AHCI on in the BIOS and install Win XP?

Thanks.
 
I had this problem a while back. There's two options:

1. Load your SATA drivers onto a floppy disk and press F6 when installing XP (requires a floppy drive).

2. Use a program called nLite to slipstream the SATA drivers into the Windows ISO. Then burn that ISO image onto a disc, boot it up, and it will install them automatically during the installation process. I can't remember the exact how-to guide I followed, but here's one as an example:

http://maxeasyguide.blogspot.com/2008/04/preparations-for-winxp-installation-cd.html

*Edit* This was the how-to guide I originally followed: http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=414 . It's very thorough and explanatory, but the process can be frustrating because it's completely manual and even one little typo can ruin the whole process. After struggling with that for hours and days, I finally found that nLite does the whole dern thing automatically, using a GUI. In short: use nLite, it's the very best tool for the job.
 
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I believe you've already been queried about this, but why use the H87 chipset for a retro-type build? It's very likely that Windows XP doesn't fully support that chipset, hence the blue screen.
 
janas19 said:
I believe you've already been queried about this, but why use the H87 chipset for a retro-type build? It's very likely that Windows XP doesn't fully support that chipset, hence the blue screen.
Click to expand...

Could be, but apart from not going into the standby mode issue, everything else seems to work under XP: I have installed all drivers, there is no yellow exclamation mark under the device manager and it is very fast overall.

If I could just figure the standby issue though...
 
You're having a problem with ACPI, not AHCI. Trying to enable AHCI during the install won't do you any good because the ACPI problem is not related. AHCI deals with how Windows talks with hard drives. ACPI deals with how the motherboard handles hibernation and sleep. Two completely different things.

So, stop messing around with enabling AHCI. You don't need to do that, and it won't solve your problem. WinXP does not support AHCI out of the box, so that is completely normal, and requires some specific efforts after WinXP installation to enable it, but again there's no need to do it.

Go to this Microsoft page about ACPI issues in Windows XP. Run through that and tell us what you found out. I'm not sure what your special retro system requires, so will you be installing SP3 and all subsequent WinXP updates or not? Also, your motherboard's BIOS may have entries in it regarding ACPI; see what you find there, and if using different settings there helps.
 
if the drive is fresh formatted it does not use nor need AHCI(or does depending on how you wanted it) and as mentioned does not come as part of XP, some newer hard drives also use advanced format which needs to be thought of when getting the drive ready for use on XP or older OS installs. You do not need to use AHCI all my drives can be used in IDE mode or AHCI mode, AHCI does tend to be faster but needs to be formatted as such and properly enabled or you are asking for wonky issues to happen, in your case being it is XP IDE is fine as you did state it works fine, there are "tricks" to get it faster by all means.

As Evilsofa is saying ACPI and AHCI are not the same thing at all, ACPI might be related on the power side of the coin, but that's pretty much it, judging by the error message you are getting one of the devices simply is not ACPI compliant or expressely told not to function as such as it may have internal code to handle it a different way.

ACPI timers are not used directly the same as they once were and more "modern" hardware is generally not going to play as nice with older OS that are more legacy coded as they use newer versions which are and should be backwards compatible, but under this token, that does not mean forwards compatible, so, if one of your parts say motherboard requires ACPI version 2.0 and the OS is only capable of understanding version 1.0 well then you have problems :p

Think of it like more boiled into the code instead of riding on it. Least this is the way I am understanding all I am reading to answer the question

IDE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA
AHCI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface http://superuser.com/questions/427340/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-xp-without-reinstalling
ACPI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Configuration_and_Power_Interface
 
FYI you generally format, boot to windows force in windows then force in bios to answer the one question, this is the way I always do it and works fine, however, AHCI to my knowledge is "new" xp and prior are most certainly not.
 
Many thanks will do that. I have fiddled with all the ACPI features in the BIOS, and the system still refuses to go into standby or hibernate. (tried dumppo also, didn't work). When I install Win7 it goes into standby mode with no issue at all, but I need XP for my video card (MSI HD4350 to be used with arcade software, and resolutions)
 
7B error is for hard drive access, nothing to do with ACPI
besides slipstreaming the drivers, did you try the F6 with floppy method?
 
dbwillis said:
7B error is for hard drive access, nothing to do with ACPI
besides slipstreaming the drivers, did you try the F6 with floppy method?
Click to expand...

I did not, as I don't have a floppy drive. I followed your advice and am sticking with IDE in the BIOS.

I am now thinking about using XP X64 instead of 32bit, as it also would work. Where can I find a 120 days trial key for XP X64? I have found the original ISO on MS website.
 
What service pack level is the Windows XP disc that you are trying to install? Make sure it is SP3 (use nLite if you have to ). Try to install the SP3 disc under IDE mode to start. If that works, then go back to AHCI mode and integrate or use F6 (I suggest integrating because there's no chance of selecting the wrong driver in Windows setup).
 
xp64 has a lot of errors present that 32bit did not have simple as that, I do not suggest that route.
 
Frist. You don't want to enable AHCI on windows XP, really its not worth it. Just keep it as IDE

2nd. you get the 7B error because you set the SATA port to AHCI, again don't use it. you don't really miss much anyway.

3rd your pc can't go into standby probably because of chipset drivers. So try the latest ones for XP. I think there are some power modes that are not supported in XP so you might need to disable them in the bios.

finally use XP SP3, you can use nlite to slipstream it if you want. You can also slipstream the SATA drivers, but again not a priority.

One more thing. As much as I like XP x64, its not going to help.
 
I always used hibernate on mine using Caviar black 640, E8400 with P5QE and prior P5K vanilla without issue, so must be a chipset driver issue, maybe choosing win7 driver instead of xp driver, would do a complete redo including BIOS to make sure is as compliant as you can make it for xp
 
Easiest way to fix ACPI problems is to turn all the power options to "always on" and only have the monitor go to sleep.
 
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