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Integration of Intel's SATA AHCI and RAID drivers


Fernando 1

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@ b3l:

Welcome at MSFN Forums!

My apologies if my questions are not appropriate. I am very new to all of this. When I had trouble having my hard drive recognized, I searched and found this thread. My question now is, while I understand how to get my drive to be recognized and working properly, I do not understand what AHCI is (I tried google) and if I need it to function or not. In simple language, what are the benefits of AHCI?
Please read the informations, which were linked by the well experienced MSFN Forum member XIII.
Also, I am wondering if I can integrate textmode drivers for video, audio, modem and other devices?
Only drivers, which are managing mass storage Controllers (SATA AHCI or SATA RAID), are TEXTMODE drivers and absolutely needed. You can integrate the so called PnP drivers for video, audio, modem and other devices, but the integration is not required to get XP installed. It is no problem to get these PnP devices working by installing the appropriate PnP drivers after having completed the XP installation.

Nevertheless it may be useful to get and store these drivers somewhere before you are going to install the OS, because you cannot download any driver, if your Network Controller doesn't work due to the missing driver.

My (likely flawed) understanding is that textmode drivers are installed very early in the installation procedure and perhaps would prevent generic drivers being installed by pnp after the OS is installed.
The first part of your sentence is correct, but the conclusion is wrong.

The installation of the TEXTMODE drivers doesn't have any impact on the later installation of the PnP drivers.

On the other hand the wrong order of the PnP drivers installation might induce problems. There are a lot of guides in the net regarding the best PnP driver installation procedure.

One last thing, since I have downgraded from Vista to XP Pro, my WLAN card is not recognized, and in fact the radio light is not on even though the bios and the hardware switch are both enabled. Could this be resolved by a driver? I have force fed the proper driver and it is marked with a yellow exclamation point in Device Manager.
You either have tried to install the wrong driver or the installation procedure failed.

My advice:

1. Check, if you have tried to install the correct 32bit XP driver for this device. If needed, download the suitable driver.

2. Uninstall this not working device from within the Device Manager, reboot and retry to install the appropriate driver.

Good luck!

Fernando

Edited by Fernando 1
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Thank you both for responding so quickly and patiently.

The wireless card is not detected at all... there is no unknown device and not a radio light to indicate it is there. It's like it doesnt exist, except I know it does and it worked fine before downgrading. So I tried installing the correct driver from my computer manufacturer but since the device still isn't detected the driver will not work either. I will ask around about this on some other boards.

for using the newest driver if gets update, only if you wish to extract drivers for yourself

download Intel Matrix Storage Manager (link found in the main post up there)

open a cmd line and go where you dowloaded the app

then run iata78_cd.exe -a -a (that's actual name and files in the main post)

the go to this folder %programfiles%\Intel\Intel Matrix Storage Manager\Driver

and there will be your drivers so you can update if the need arises

The extraction is not needed, if you use the actual driver packages linked within the first post of this thread.

Furthermore I will keep the download links up-to-date.

CU

Fernando

I am confused about step 4...

In step "1. Preparation" I (#2) I did as instructed with the textmode drivers and in "2. Processing with nLite" I also followed instructions and chose iaAHCI.inf to integrate the driver. Is iaAHCI.inf from step 1. also the Matrix Storage Manager from step 4?

When you said "The extraction is not needed, if you use the actual driver packages linked within the first post..." Were you referring to this: 32bit Intel textmode drivers v8.8.0.1009

or this: Intel Storage Manager program v8.8.0.1009

If it is the first one, then what is the purpose of step 4 if I have already integrated it? If it is the second one, can I use nlite to integrate the Matrix Storage Manager using its info or must I install the package manually after the OS is installed?

I'm sorry I don't understand better.

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The wireless card is not detected at all... there is no unknown device and not a radio light to indicate it is there. It's like it doesnt exist, except I know it does and it worked fine before downgrading. So I tried installing the correct driver from my computer manufacturer but since the device still isn't detected the driver will not work either.
Have you enabled the WLAN function (commonly by hitting Fn+F1 with laptops)?

Windows will only detect devices, which are enabled.

I am confused about step 4...

In step "1. Preparation" I (#2) I did as instructed with the textmode drivers and in "2. Processing with nLite" I also followed instructions and chose iaAHCI.inf to integrate the driver. Is iaAHCI.inf from step 1. also the Matrix Storage Manager from step 4?

When you said "The extraction is not needed, if you use the actual driver packages linked within the first post..." Were you referring to this: 32bit Intel textmode drivers v8.8.0.1009

or this: Intel Storage Manager program v8.8.0.1009

If it is the first one, then what is the purpose of step 4 if I have already integrated it? If it is the second one, can I use nlite to integrate the Matrix Storage Manager using its info or must I install the package manually after the OS is installed?

The Intel Matrix Storage Manager is a complete package, which contains

a ) the Intel SATA AHCI and RAID drivers (= Intel textmode drivers) and

b ) the Intel Matrix Storage Control Console (this is an application, which makes it possible to control the RAID or AHCI configuration from within the running OS).

You cannot integrate the whole package, but you need to integrate the drivers to detect the SATA hdd(s) during the XP installation.

Since it is not easy to extract the needed textmode drivers off the Intel Matrix Storage Package and since the installation of the Intel Matrix Control Console should be done after having completed the XP installation, I recommend to download and store just the small driver package named F6FLPY3288.ZIP as step 1 ("Preparation"), whereas the complete Intel Matrix Storage Manager package named IATA88CD.EXE can be downloaded and installed at step 4 ("How to get access to the Intel Storage Manager").

Everything clear now?

Regards

Fernando

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Much clearer, thank you! Can you point me in the right direction to find info about extracting and slipstreaming graphics drivers. It seems they are not so easy.

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Much clearer, thank you! Can you point me in the right direction to find info about extracting and slipstreaming graphics drivers. It seems they are not so easy.
The NVIDIA GeForce drivers can easily be extracted by common tools like WinRAR or 7-Zip. After the extraction you can integrate the complete driver by pointing to the file NV4_DISP.INF.

The preparation of the ATI Catalyst drivers for the integration is a little bit more complicated. The best thing is to download and run the 9-4_xp32_dd.exe file (you can do this even with a computer without any ATI graphics adapter), because the first step of the "installation" is nothing else than an extraction. After having done it, you will find the extracted driver package within the folder ATI\Support of your OS partition. The INF file, which usually is valid for the integration of the suitable driver, is within the XP_INF folder. After having integrated the driver, you can delete the complete ATI folder. Nothing will be really installed by that procedure.

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Oops, I guess I should have stated I have Intel 965 Express Chipset. When I extract the files there are a whole pile of them, with executables too. I don't know which I need and how to deal with the exe. I suppose if I could integrate the inf I could always run the executables afterwards... at least then I would be assured that the correct drivers were installed and perhaps avoid multiple default drivers. Thank you for your help.

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@ b3l:

Why do you want to integrate the graphics driver and other PnP drivers? If you are going to reinstall the OS some weeks later, many of these drivers are already outdated. Furthermore you enhance the possibility of an OS installation failure by each integrated driver.

That is why I recommend to integrate just the needed textmode driver and maybe the chipset drivers, but not any others.

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I want to integrate it because of problems with the wrong graphics drivers being automatically installed and then not being able to get rid of them afterwards even when I install the correct one. I do understand your point, and that may indeed be my only option in the end. But I would like to figure out how to do it before I give up on the idea.

Edited by b3l
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  • 2 weeks later...

@ all users of my guide (first post of this thread):

Yesterday I found a new Beta version of Intel's Matrix Storage Manager at Station-Drivers pages. Although Station-Drivers named it v8.9.0.1014, the package contains the brandnew Intel textmode 32/64bit drivers and the Matrix Storage Console v8.9.1015 dated 04/10/2009.

Since this new version is working fine with my own ICH10R RAID system, I have updated my guide and added the links to these unofficial drivers and to the new Intel Matrix Storage Manager Console application.

Any feedback is much appreciated.

Have fun!

Fernando

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Any feedback is much appreciated.

It works fine on ICH9M (manually update driver from devmgr).

It appears as 'not digitally signed' (but I guess you already know that :)).

If you unpack the package manually, there's release notes inside :w00t:.

It says that "This release enables support for Windows 7" (might be important for someone?)

Fernando1 is the coolest. :D:hello:

GL

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@ GrofLuigi:

Thanks for your feedback.

As I have written, these new drivers are still Beta and not yet WHQL certified, but I am confident, that they will get the digital stamp very soon. That is why I have put them already into my guide.

Regards

Fernando

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hi at all,

i have an acer extensa 5210 with a HITACHI HD SATA HTS541680J9SA00.

which intel textmode driver i have to put ?

please answer me i'm very sad :(

sorry for my bad english and thanks for your answers :)

problem finished by putting all the files into the cd of windows xp

Edited by Jarheadnow
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@ Jarheadnow:

Welcome at MSFN Forums!

Since your Acer Extensa Laptop has an Intel Southbridge, you should be able to get Windows XP installed after having integrated the Intel textmode driver according to the first post of this thread. Although I couldn't find any information about the exact Intel SATA AHCI Controller of your laptop (ICH7-M or ICH8-M), I am very confident, that you will succeed, if you do the following:

1. Download this driver and unzip it.

2. Start nLite and integrate the unzipped folder as TEXTMODE driver.

3. When you get the popup window with the list of Intel Controllers, enable all of them, which have the words "SATA AHCI" in it.

Good luck!

Fernando

EDIT: As I just have realized, you have already solved your problem.

Edited by Fernando 1
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Although I couldn't find any information about the exact Intel SATA AHCI Controller of your laptop (ICH7-M or ICH8-M), I am very confident, that you will succeed,...

That's an ICH7-M combined with the 943GML:

Graphics

Mobile Intel® 943GML Express Chipset with integrated 3D graphics, featuring Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950 with up to 224 MB of shared system memory, supporting Microsoft® DirectX® 9, PCI Express®

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