Enable Intel AHCI under XP [Case Closed => read second last post]

[puntoMX]

thanks very much!!!

i think i have successfully enabled the function.

Your welcome, by the way, on what motherboard did you enable it?

[longo213]

I'm just curious why to use the MagicISO/WinRAR mumbo jumbo when there is much easier way to do it. I did not used floppy drive in any of my machines (PCs and laptops) for almost six years, with USB flash drives and Virtual Flopy Drive (yah VIRTUAL!) and I'm all set.

Just download it, unzip, run the file named vfdwin.exe and in the Driver you need to click on the Start button - which will install and start VFD's driver. In Drive0 tab click to Change button, change the drive letter to any available (A: is usual) and hooray - you have unformatted, virtual 1.44" floppy in virtual drive You can also open existing flopy image file (check the Open button), but for this case it's not needed.

Then you can run Intel's f6flpy32.exe, format the non-existent drive and let it do it's job. After that you can check the "A:" drive with windows explorer and all the Intel SATA drivers files are there and you can copy them anywhere you wish to.

Click to Driver tab on VFD's Control Panel, then on Uninstall button, close... all in 30 seconds, max.

Virtual Floppy Drive is an useful piece of (free!) software - you can create, open, change the content of floppy images and then save them into files, which might be useful if you want to use them for bootable CDs, for example.

[puntoMX]

Click to Driver tab on VFD's Control Panel, then on Uninstall button, close... all in 30 seconds, max.

It’s just an example I made, and that can be done in 1/3 the time you used .

[longo213]

It’s just an example I made, and that can be done in 1/3 the time you used .

Yah, but still got to play with Magic ISO. VFD solves that all. Writing my explanation took much longer that all of that

[beebb]

thanks very much!!!

i think i have successfully enabled the function.

Your welcome, by the way, on what motherboard did you enable it?

i'm using Gigabyte GA-G33M-S2H (Intel® G33 + ICH9 Chipset)

but i'm now facing one problem. the dvd-rom has some problem after i enabled AHCI. when i push the button, it opens and then close immediately (normally i have to push the button again to close it). and it couldn't recognize the disc until i restart the computer.

i'm using LG H62N 18+/- SATA DVD RW Box.

does anyone face the same problem and know how to solve it??

[beebb]

thanks very much!!!

i think i have successfully enabled the function.

Your welcome, by the way, on what motherboard did you enable it?

i'm using Gigabyte GA-G33M-S2H (Intel® G33 + ICH9 Chipset)

but i'm now facing one problem. the dvd-rom has some problem after i enabled AHCI. when i push the button, it opens and then close immediately (normally i have to push the button again to close it). and it couldn't recognize the disc until i restart the computer.

i'm using LG H62N 18+/- SATA DVD RW Box.

does anyone face the same problem and know how to solve it??

oops.... it was the cable connection problem. i reconnected them and the problem was solved. it was nothing to do with the AHCI setting.

[theshadowrunner]

I did it guys!

It worked perfectly on P5K-VM with ICH9 southbridge. Switched AHCI in BIOS. Then had to reboot AGAIN in BIOS for HDD drive to be detected under a new AHCI section that appeared in BIOS, THEN rebooted to windows finally and finished installing the driver.

First, there is a small issue with the instructions.

Because if you replace the lines in iaahci.inf from latest intel package, you will have two entries with:

"PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2923&CC_0106.DeviceDesc" at the bottom of the INF.

You must erase the first one and keep the one that you modded and that finishes by this : = "Intel® ICH9 SATA AHCI Controller"

I think it's purely cosmetic for the name of the entry in device manager but it was worth saying.

About the new performance when comparing emulated IDE to AHCI+NCQ, I must say i am mixed.

From MY feeling, it is much faster especially when cold booting windows, maybe 10 seconds less.

But then i checked the drives performance under HDTune, and strange results, the Burst Rate is bad with AHCI!!!

What's going on??

My 2 HDDs are Samsung sata drives with NCQ support.

Apart from that, my IDE DVD-RW Drive still works the same, no problem.

I am going to try making a backup with Ghost 2003 now...

See you,

TSR

Edited April 4, 2008 by theshadowrunner

[theshadowrunner]

Ghost 2003 imaging worked perfect too

No problem whatsoever with Ghost2003 with AHCI enabled in BIOS.

Gotta use the additional "-FNI" command line so it forces Ghost to work with your HDD SATA.

(for those wondering, -FNI is better than -NOIDE because Ghost still sees IDE CD/DVD drives with -FNI while it doesn't with -NOIDE, allowing you to burn a selfbooting backup image directly to a DVD)

Coming back to perf, Windows XP definitely boots a LOT faster with AHCI.. only the "burst rate" report from HDTune has me troubled.

See you,

TSR

[puntoMX]

Throughput benchmarks will show nothing, you can see that in the posts I made before, but boot times, load times of programs/games and a bit more can be seen easily.

Glad it worked all out well .

[theshadowrunner]

Indeed, doing a "Windows Update" search gives me the result page much faster. (I would say between half and 2/3 of the time it took before)

In a similar manner, opening many tabs simultaneously in IE7 seem much more responsive than before.

Happy camper here.

What did you guys experience, seems faster for you too?

Later,

TSR

[theshadowrunner]

Hey guys, i was wondering if there was a way to install the Intel Matrix Storage CONSOLE, to check what modes the drives are in, if NCQ is enabled or not (it seems it's an activable feature, it's not ALWAYS enabled as soon as AHCI is enabled as I've read elsewhere...)

Thanks for this info.

[puntoMX]

That would be a hack, or to say a work-around that goes deeper then forcing AHCI to install on an ICH9 under XP. I never tried it or looked for it, as the Matrix software is only good for RAID and some other small options that a normal user will never touch.

[theshadowrunner]

It would be a hack without any doubts.

I wonder where the app is actually stored as it's not extracted/visible when using -A command on the installer..

[boyzo123]

This WORKED after other attempts from the Net this worked.

My Gigabyte P35-DS3 SATA boot drive on the GigaByte SATA Channnel .. with the Intel main SATA channel not working as I imaged my windows with Acronis to the new drive (motherboard chipsets were OLD AMD new INTEL ).. So not possible to insert the drivers (F6) into the floppy drive as Idid not wan't to install windows from scratch.

Follow the steps edit the Inf file and it will work.

Thing you need a channel for a boot drive so you can install the drivers .. the 2nd Gigabyte SATA channel made this possible.

Dont forget to turn on SATA in the Intel channel after reboot when installing the Controller driver ..

[beebb]

thanks very much!!!

i think i have successfully enabled the function.

Your welcome, by the way, on what motherboard did you enable it?

i'm using Gigabyte GA-G33M-S2H (Intel® G33 + ICH9 Chipset)

but i'm now facing one problem. the dvd-rom has some problem after i enabled AHCI. when i push the button, it opens and then close immediately (normally i have to push the button again to close it). and it couldn't recognize the disc until i restart the computer.

i'm using LG H62N 18+/- SATA DVD RW Box.

does anyone face the same problem and know how to solve it??

oops.... it was the cable connection problem. i reconnected them and the problem was solved. it was nothing to do with the AHCI setting.

oh my god... i found out that it IS the AHCI problem.

i re-connected the cables and the problem goes away and i thought it was solved. but eventually i found the problem just comes and goes under the AHCI mode. sometimes it appears and sometimes the drive works normally. but when i switch back to the IDE mode, it works PERFECTLY WELL.

i've searched in the internet and found out that some SATA optical drives don't work well under the AHCI mode. some even disappear under the AHCI mode.

but i'm thinking even the brand or the model number of the optical drive can't tell whether the problem would appear. i've read some posts that some people having the exact same model with me DO NOT have the problem.

i'm not sure if it is just bad luck or certain models of optical drives plus certain models of motherboard together won't work well under AHCI mode.

of course i hope to solve the problem and i'm trying to contact LG but the phone keeps ringing and no one picked up. i will try again very soon and hope to get an answer and hopefully a solution to the problem.