Many SATA controllers can enable AHCI either separately or in conjunction with RAID <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID> support. Intel recommends choosing RAID mode on their motherboards<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherboard>(which also enables AHCI) rather than the plain AHCI/SATA mode for maximum flexibility, due to the issues caused when the mode is switched once an operating system has already been installed
- Enabling AHCI in a system BIOS <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS> will cause a 0x7B Blue Screen of Death<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Screen_of_Death>STOP error ( *INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE*) on installations of Windows XP<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP>where AHCI/RAID drivers for that system's chipset are not installed. Switching to AHCI mode requires installing new drivers before changing the BIOS settings. - For Intel chipsets (for example, Intel ICH9<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I/O_Controller_Hub#ICH9>) drivers are available from either an OEM board or computer manufacturer. For the Intel versions, the driver must be loaded before loading the OS (by pressing F6 as setup starts).The Intel drivers will work for both XP and Vista. Also, in the case of ICH9, an unsupported method to enable AHCI on ICH9 <http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=109450> is available. - When attempting to install Microsoft Windows XP or a previous version on an AHCI-enabled system will cause the setup to fail with the error message "set up could not detect hard disk drive...". This problem can only be corrected by either using a floppy disk<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk>with the appropriate drivers, by slipstreaming <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slipstream_%28computing%29>the appropriate drivers into the Windows XP installation CD or by turning on IDE emulation<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface>in the BIOS settings if available. - Enabling AHCI in a system BIOS with Windows Vista<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista>already installed will result in a BSoD <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Screen_of_Death> if SATA has been running in IDE mode during Vista's installation. Before enabling AHCI in the BIOS, users must first follow the instructions found at Microsoft Knowledge Base article 922976 <http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976>. - Enabling AHCI in a system BIOS on installations of Windows XP or Windows Vista will cause SATA Optical drives to disappear. A Hotfix for Windows Vista is available under the title: "SATA optical drives are not available after you start a Windows Vista-based computer. That's from wiki. I've never used AHCI myself..perhaps the whole article might shed light? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface MIke On Sat, Jun 7, 2008 at 1:17 PM, Tony B <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Yes, just today, although I really don't want RAID, just AHCI. Setup > stops saying it can't find any hard drives (bios shows them okay). It > really shouldn't be this difficult for a mainstream board like Intel. > > > On Sat, Jun 7, 2008 at 3:04 PM, Jeff Wright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Good luck with Intel tech support. It's taken me months to get a solution > > for warranty support from them. It's a slow motion ballet of email > > messages. > > > > I gotta say tho', this is really odd. I've installed XP with SATA drives > on > > probably a dozen different chipsets and never run into this in a non-RAID > > environment. > > > > Have you tried the RAID driver? I don't recall seeing that in the > thread. > > > ************************************************************************* > ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** > ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** > ************************************************************************* > ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
