Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA785GPMT-UD2H CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 555 RAM: Corsair DDR3 4GB @ 669MHz Video: ATI Radeon HD 5750 PSU: OZC Mod X-stream Pro 500W Hard drives: Samsung HD103SJ & Western Digital WD1600JD DVD-rom: Pioneer DVR-212D OS: Win7, but we're dealing with the BIOS I'm about to wipe my current OS install. Currently the BIOS is set for SATA to be IDE (all drives are SATA). I'd like to have the BIOS set to AHCI for the drives, but I'm running into some trouble. Let me state that when SATA is set to IDE in the BIOS everything works just fine. It's when changing it from IDE that things begin to act up. Current BIOS settings: * On-chip SATA controller is set to on. * On-Chip SATA type is set to Native IDE. * This automatically sets the On-chip SATA Port4/5 type to IDE and cannot be changed. When set this way everything boots fine and I see this on boot. So since I'm wanting AHCI for my drives, here's what I've tried. I'll group the different variations: Variation 1 * Set On-chip SATA type to "AHCI" * Set On-chip Sata port4/5 type to "IDE" No boot. An ACHI scan screen appears and finds all 3 drives, but once Windows boots it BSOD's because of being set to AHCI and not IDE and the SATA drivers not being loaded. Variation 2 * Set On-chip SATA type to "AHCI" * Set On-chip Sata port4/5 type to "As SATA type" No boot. An ACHI scan screen appears and finds all 3 drives, but once Windows boots it BSOD's because of being set to AHCI and not IDE and the SATA drivers not being loaded. Variation 3 I could set On-chip SATA to "RAID", but since this isn't an array of course that won't work. So with that said, am I missing a combination somewhere? Maybe another setting? I thought the settings should have been "AHCI" and then "As SATA type", but like I said that gives me a BSOD. Oh, when the BIOS SATA settings are set to anything other than IDE the first boot screen displays the exact same info as in the pic above, minus the IDE Channel 2/3 section. To be more specific on which ports my drives are plugged into: * Boot HD (Samsung) is plugged into SATA port 2_0 * 2nd HD (WD) is in SATA port 2_1 * DVD-rom is in SATA port 2_2. My first thought is why are the drives appearing on the 2nd/3rd channel and not 0/1 when they're plugged into ports 0/1/2? Here's a pic of what happens when On-chip SATA type is set to "AHCI". You'll see that all three drives are found. The Win7 disc in the DVD drive, but it will not boot to it. I get an almost instantaneous BSOD with the code that points to the SATA driver (0x00000007b). Here's what happens when On-chip SATA is set to Native IDE and the DVD-rom is moved to SATA port 2_4. When On-chip SATA is changed to AHCI and ports 4/5 are changed to IDE, IDE Channel 2/3 isn't on the initial boot screen and the AHCI scan finds only the 2 HDDs. The Win7 DVD can then be booted from and the Win7 install sees all HDDs. You'd think things would be OK and I wouldn't be posting here. However, it took about 20 minutes to get from "Press any key to boot from DVD" to where I could click something to start the install of Win7. That seems like it's a little much, considering how many times I've installed Win7 at work and it takes just a few minutes to get to that point. I'm confused as to why selecting AHCI for all drives (DVD-rom included) won't let me boot from a DVD. The length of time mentioned in the paragraph directly above this one also concerns me. Any help is greatly appreciated. I'll be away from my computer for most of the day tomorrow (central US time zone), but I'll try my best to get back with the results of suggestions as soon as I can. Hope I've included everything I need to. Just a little confused and frustrated.
It is NORMAL that Windows does not boot (BSOD) Windows is running on IDE Legacy mode, it expect a IDE HDD. You need to re-install Windows, WITH the AHCI option enabled in the BIOS. They are on the net a few workarounds, where it will make Windows 7 re-detect the controller information, but it's a hit and miss. It might work like it might not work. My recommendation is to re-install, to have everything clean, and well done.
Guys, you're missing the point. I want to reinstall... I'm not interested in saving/hacking my current OS install to change it from IDE to AHCI. I realize that it is normal to BSOD when changing from IDE to AHCI when you do not reinstall the OS; I mentioned that in my original post. Exactly! This is what I'm trying to do. But as I said, when AHCI is enabled for all drives the computer will not boot from the DVD-rom, even though the drive is found in the AHCI scan. (See pics I posted above.) This is not normal. The only way it will boot from the DVD-rom is when it alone is set to IDE, but when I do this it takes FOREVER to get to the point of starting the Win7 install. This isn't normal either. So basically I have two issues: When ALL drives are set to AHCI, I cannot boot from the optical drive. When the optical drive alone is set to IDE, it takes an abnormal amount of time to boot from the OS DVD. Like I said in the OP, all of this can be avoided when ALL drives are set to IDE, but is this the best setting? Wouldn't AHCI be better?
google "sata optical drive ahci" or the like and have a peak at the hits returned. im wondering if your optical drive and/or sata controllers simply dont like having opticals on AHCI. the fact that it works under IDE seems to reinforce this theory (the slowness could simply be because optical drives and IDE in general are...slow). i wish i could give you a concrete answer, but admittedly i dont know a lot about it. i do know that if you arent using any of the advanced features that AHCI allows for (hot swapping, TRIM for SSDs, RAID, etc), then you will never notice the difference between IDE and AHCI.
I was wondering the same thing. Take a look at this picture. Notice that the compatibility on the opti drive is none. But it's a SATA drive! Shouldn't it be compatible? Your google-fu suggestion turned up a lot of interesting hits. I've got some reading to do. Looks like quite a few suggest not running optical drives on AHCI, but some of those hits are old. Like you said, noting concrete. I'm fine with running them all in IDE mode, but a more definite answer would be nice.
do you have any friends with optical drives running in AHCI that you could borrow? or maybe any other SATA ODDs laying around that you could try in the off chance they might work in AHCI? this would be the fastest way to rule out the drive as the problem. also, ensure your drive has the latest firmware, since this could effect compatibility. hopefully someone with some more insight spys this and can enlighten us both
I haven't thought about updating the firmware. I'll give that a try. I'm beginning to think that it is the opti drive. I don't have another to test with though.
you got a usb stick thats around 4gb? do a usb install. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd535816.aspx
How far through the setup did you get? it may just be having teething trouble loading the right AHCI driver and could be fine once the OS is installed
OF COURSE! Why I didn't think of that.. and I do it ALL the time. I am able to install Windows 7 in 7min (coincidence, not advertisement) with my high speed USB 2.0 stick.
