SSD in AHCI or IDE

L

LiamTheBoss

New member
Hi guys, i just got my Corsair force 3 120gb ssd, stormed in with the windows 7 install and forgot to enable AHCI. I am in IDE mode atm so is this going to be a problem or do i have to reinstall windows with AHCI mode enabled? Thanks very much.
 
I don't know about what to do if you've installed in the wrong format, but what I do know is that AHCI is like, MEGA important for SSDs.

I followed several guides making out they key important points when I installed my SSD. I think I re-installed around 3 or 4 times in the end. I wanted to make sure I got it right lol.
 
Sheza said:
I don't know about what to do if you've installed in the wrong format, but what I do know is that AHCI is like, MEGA important for SSDs.

I followed several guides making out they key important points when I installed my SSD. I think I re-installed around 3 or 4 times in the end. I wanted to make sure I got it right lol.
Click to expand...

lol
 
Erg, there is a pretty long winded trick you can google for to get ahci drivers onto an ide installed OS - sometimes resulting in you needing to leave the drives in raid mode, although not raided, in order to boot. This adds boot time and so on.

... being as this is such a pita, and not for the light hearted, reinstall.
 
Rastalovich said:
Erg, there is a pretty long winded trick you can google for to get ahci drivers onto an ide installed OS - sometimes resulting in you needing to leave the drives in raid mode, although not raided, in order to boot. This adds boot time and so on.

... being as this is such a pita, and not for the light hearted, reinstall.
Click to expand...

but do you recommend me changing mode?
 
I would.

What exactly the performance hit is, I couldn't tell you. I'm sure somewhere like Tom'sHardware have done a study (google is your friend).

Will it be a stable platform to leave it on ide ? Sure.

If you're planning on keeping this OS install for months to come, backup your shizzle and reinstall.

Whilst you're at it, spend some time reading this : http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/seans-windows-7-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds. It's an older link, but pretty good.
 
Thanks very much for you help! Will reinstall now.
Rastalovich said:
I would.

What exactly the performance hit is, I couldn't tell you. I'm sure somewhere like Tom'sHardware have done a study (google is your friend).

Will it be a stable platform to leave it on ide ? Sure.

If you're planning on keeping this OS install for months to come, backup your shizzle and reinstall.
Click to expand...
Rastalovich said:
I would.

What exactly the performance hit is, I couldn't tell you. I'm sure somewhere like Tom'sHardware have done a study (google is your friend).

Will it be a stable platform to leave it on ide ? Sure.

If you're planning on keeping this OS install for months to come, backup your shizzle and reinstall.
Click to expand...

one more question! should i change the sata configuration to AHCI before i put the windows 7 disk in and does it matter if my other drives r in AHCI mode?

thanks
 
That's two questions !!

hehe, anywho, yes have your bios set to ahci before sticking Windows 7 disk in, all your drives 'should' be in ahci mode. If they're older storage drives, it won't make a difference.

And to cover myself again, back your shizzle up ! And read that article ! The reason people tend to have to do things like switching from ide installs to ahci is because of the preparation.
 
To the best of my knowledge, from around ICH7, AHCI has been preferred over IDE. ICH6/7 there were teething issue, in my experience.

Keep in mind IDE mode for SATA drives is kind of a fall back or emulation for legacy.

You can technically set IDE and AHCI modes when you have... say Intel and Marvell controllers on your mobo.
 
Sheza said:
I wasn't aware you could set the mode for separate drives, I thought it was a BIOS level thing.
Click to expand...

Well it's just that my PC posts twice, first time it says no boot drive detected and then boots normally and I wondered if it was due to not having it set to AHCI in the BIOS.

It's nothing to do with boot priority and I've posted a thread before and no one had any clue as to why it would do it.
 
SEBAR said:
[sub]You can download a fix from Microsoft. Follow the instructions in this link. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976. I did this and it worked for me. [/sub]
Click to expand...

If that works for IDE to AHCI, it's newer than the long winded thread I'm thinking of. You could try it before hand and see what happens.

From memory, things like that work for RAID to AHCI or vice versa - could be wrong tho. Key thing is that the driver is in your OS, and working, for the trick to work.
 
Rastalovich said:
If that works for IDE to AHCI, it's newer than the long winded thread I'm thinking of. You could try it before hand and see what happens.

From memory, things like that work for RAID to AHCI or vice versa - could be wrong tho. Key thing is that the driver is in your OS, and working, for the trick to work.
Click to expand...

I had my SSD set to IDE in the BIOS before I found out that it is best to have it set to AHCI. I did my research and found the Microsoft support page. It worked for me with no problems. I did backup everything before I downloaded the fix.
 
I had a simular promlem when I cloned my RAID 0 hard drives to my Intel SSD, It cloned over just fine, but when I removed the drives put it in AHCI mode, no boot.

Put it back to RAID mode with one SSD booted fine.

Found a link on Intels website, it installed something on the drive, than I was able to switch it to AHCI mode no problem.
 
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