Can I switch from IDE to AHCI on the fly just by changing the setting in the CMOS?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Windows User Undefined
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W

Windows User Undefined

Or will I have to reformat and reinstall Vista? I was unaware of this
setting until recently as I have never owned a SATA II drive. Thanks for
any help with this.
 
John Lee Brown said:
You will have to reformat to use that setting
Click to expand...

Thank you. That is what I thought, but was hoping beyond hope on this one.
:0)
 
Windows User Undefined said:
Thank you. That is what I thought, but was hoping beyond hope on this
one. :0)
Click to expand...

Well, I guess I have a motherboard that Vista doesn't l ike my AHCI onboard
controller. It just sat at the animated screen going and going across, and
the HD LED stayed RED for at least 10 minutes. I was afraid of it damaging
my hard drive, so I switched to SATA RAID mode. I only have the one HD in
this computer, but it did work by using the CD that came with the
motherboard and browsing to the XP SATARAID driver. Not sure if the drive
is faster or not, as both times I get a 5.8 as the Hard Drive score.

Thanks again,
Wayne
 
Wayne said:
Well, I guess I have a motherboard that Vista doesn't l ike my AHCI
onboard controller. It just sat at the animated screen going and going
across, and the HD LED stayed RED for at least 10 minutes. I was afraid of
it damaging my hard drive, so I switched to SATA RAID mode. I only have
the one HD in this computer, but it did work by using the CD that came
with the motherboard and browsing to the XP SATARAID driver. Not sure if
the drive is faster or not, as both times I get a 5.8 as the Hard Drive
score.
Click to expand...

Well, after searching for answers about this problem I read on one site that
you have to have the SATA-RAID drivers installed before you switch to AHCI.
So, on a hunch I just now switched back to AHCI mode for the drive, and
booted back into the recently installed Vista, and it worked. At least no
BSOD or stalling occurred. And I am typing this message from this same
computer. I wonder why I could install in RAID mode even though I only had
one Hard Drive? And I wonder why setup failed on the first try without
giving me a chance to insert the driver CD? Kind of weird, but I am glad it
worked. :)

Later,
Wayne
 
John, thank you again for your response.


Now, I am wondering why I didn't receive one answer from anyone elese?
 
PaulB said:
I don't know what mother board you have but look at this:

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...board_id=1&model=P5B-E&page=1&SLanguage=en-us
Click to expand...

Thank you Paul. I have the ASUS A8V-XE motherboard, and I found that by
setting my SATA hard drive to RAID mode in the BIOS and then re-formatting
and installing Vista using the XP drivers for my onboard SATA RAID
connection worked. Afterwards I reset the BIOS to AHCI mode in the BIOS and
it worked. :0)

Have a great week,
Wayne
 
You can switch 'on the fly' but it require a registry change:-
No reformat no loss of data :)
Goto Key:-
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\msahci
Set start to 0,
reboot
set ahci to enabled in bios... or disabled
and hey presto ahci or standard mode is then installed by vista.
 
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