(n00b question) IDE vs AHCI

J

JYeager11

Gawd
Joined
Nov 15, 2006
Messages
563
I'm in the process of installing a new Crucial C300 SSD drive, and the firmware updating instructions mention that the port needs to be set to IDE (not AHCI) for the updating to work.

I went into my BIOS and found that all my SATA ports were already set to IDE.

Should I be switching them all to AHCI after the update? What exactly is AHCI? Wikipedia gives me basics, but gives me no hint of whether or not I should be setting my ports to this.

Thanks!
 
How much of a risk am I taking here? If I screw something up and my OS won't run under AHCI, will switching back to IDE get it to run again? Without the OS, I have no means to contact the net for help, and will have just painted myself into a corner. Scary proposition.
 
If you're running Windows 7, you should have no problem switching back and forth...done it a bunch of times.

.
 
Once the firmware is up to date and your ready to start installing Windows 7, switch the controller to AHCI mode. AHCI allows many additional features that are not available in IDE mode, such as hot swap and native command queuing. For a SSD drive, command queuing probably won't get you much, but it shouldn't hurt. On a mechanical drive, command queuing can increase the number of IO operations per second because the drive can re-order the command queue to be more optimal for the characteristics of the drive.

Also, if your going to use TRIM, you have to have AHCI mode on.
 
I just went to your link to follow the instructions to switch harmlessly to AHCI, and located the registry key to find that it was ALREADY set to 0.

In other words, it's like someone already came in here and did the change for me.

How does this make any sense? I've never even HEARD of AHCI until today, and by default my BIOS has always set my SATA ports to IDE.
 
Christopher said:
Once the firmware is up to date and your ready to start installing Windows 7, switch the controller to AHCI mode.
Click to expand...

I have 2 firmware updates to go through with the Crucial C300 SSD before I'm ready to install Windows 7 on it.

The first worked sans problems (#0002). I can't get the 2nd to work (#0006), nor can I get the drive to show up under Disk Management.

SATA ports are currently (and have always been) set to IDE.

What do I do? The firmware update instructions specifically state the drive must be in IDE mode to update firmware.
 
Turns out I flashed 0002 over 0006 (it shipped with the latest firmware already on it, and I was too eager to update it). I'm now in contact with Crucial to find out if this is somehow un-doable.

EDIT: Don't ask me how, but I fixed it. It's proper 0006 now.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top