Check AHCI

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Rahburt-33

Gawd
Joined
Mar 17, 2008
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763
Hey everybody
I decided to activate AHCI for my Windows 7 install. (I have the drivers working and installed)
My only problem is that I cannot actually determine if my disk drive is running in AHCI mode
My BIOS has a bunch of options: AHCI, AHCI -> IDE, Standard IDE, Legacy IDE, RAID, auto.

I have it set to AHCI -> IDE.
If I set it to AHCI, the computer doesn't boot, just a black screen with a blinking underscore. And obviously if I set it to an IDE mode it won't be AHCI.

In device manager under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, it lists ATA channels 0,0,1,1,2,3, Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA port, and Standard Dual Chanel PCI IDE channel controller. Is this a list of the drivers installed or the Drivers being used? (My mobo does not have IDE ribbon cable spot at all)

Thanks in advance for any help or advice
 
Does it have any details in the BIOS or the manual about what those different options do?

Generally you want plain old "AHCI". Usually the options with "IDE" or "Legacy" in the name are the backward-compatible ones that are not actually using AHCI. However, the fact that you have three different options that all sound like legacy IDE is a bit confusing.

Do you know if you have multiple SATA controllers on that motherboard? The fact that Windows is showing two separate controllers (Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA port and Standard Dual Chanel PCI IDE) sounds like it might have some of the SATA ports on a separate controller. If there are two controllers, then the BIOS options may be combination settings for both controllers together.

Switching on AHCI actually causes the controller to use a different mode with a different device ID. Since Windows is seeing a different device that it doesn't have drivers installed for, it fails to boot. On XP, this results in a 0x7B BSOD. It sounds like that might be what your black screen is, but I'm not familiar with how Win7 reacts to that.
 
The manual on both the website and that came with the board don't say anything. (The board is a Biostar TA890GXB HD)

I have the AHCI drivers installed though, I had to change the registry etc.

I changed the setting to plain AHCI in the bios. I looked around somewhere else in the bios, and it only showed Sata channels 5 and 6, not the first four. So I unplugged my Hard drive and DVD drive from the channels that they were set to and plugged them into 5 and 6. Rebooted, and Windows 7 loads. Can't tell if AHCI is enabled though, I re-ran the windows performance assesment and nothing changed. Nothing in the OS looks any different. I'm gonna pop in the disk that came with my mobo and see if that does anything.

EDIT: I looked around on the the disk, and I found what was called "ATI SATA AHCI/RAID F6 Floppy"
I had it install this to a folder on my desktop. Should I right click on this .inf and install it?
 
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