How to enable AHCI/RAID mode without reinstalling windows (P35/ICH9/ICH9R)

[circuitmonkey]

P.S. Is it okay to leave the Registry entries (since I don't have the ICH9(R) chipset), or should I remove them?
]

It should be ok to leave them as the pci vender and device id's are unique to the ich9.
That said for completeness and tidiness you may want to just delete them.

[Skatesmen]

This works with the Intel DX58SO (ICH10R), too. I had to set up a RAID 1 volume with 2 1.5TB hard drives for a new computer, but the board lacks both floppy and IDE ports. Excellent guide.

[goaliejerryy]

THIS WORKS ON VISTA 64.

My main problem was I wanted to clone my current OS partition onto a yet to be installed Raid-0 configuration. BUT, research informed me that first Vista had to have RAID drivers installed - and normally, you cannot install such drivers except at the time of original OS installation.

(note to Intel - I am amazed that no one over there ever thought that perhaps someone would want to setup a RAID system AFTER installing the OS....)

So, I needed to make my current version of Vista have the raid drivers installed before I could clone, but as you know, if you found this post, there is no straight forward way to just install the drivers without just clean installing.

This post has the answer.

I just want to say thank you to the original poster, all those who contributed, as well as "eliprand," whose advice of 05-05-2008 was critically important. (And if he got if from someone else, thank you too!)

Here is exactly what I did, just in-case someone has a similar setup as I do.

Mobo: MSI-7345 P35 chipset, NEO2-FR, w/ ICH9R RAID controller on-board
Bios: 1.10 (most recent)
OS: Vista Ultimate 64

First - I downloaded most recent version of Intel Matrix Storage from Intel website.
Second - I followed the directions in the first post, just substituting the newest version of the Intel Matrix Storage. Extract the files, move the appropriate .SYS file. THEN run the registry hack noted in the first post.
Third - reboot, and set bios to AHCI, since raid won't work yet.
Fourth - windows will start up (progress, since it wouldn't even do this before), let it run its install of drivers (since you can't stop it.)
Fifth - look above at Eliprand's post, wherein he describes editing the registry of "iaStor" to Start = 0x4, and editing "iaStorV" to Start = 0x0. THAT IS THE KEY.

Sixth - reboot, set to RAID in BIOS, then Vista will start up and install new device drivers, configuring each currently installed hard drive to run with the RAID drivers.

CHECK - in device manager, under "Storage Controllers," it now lists the ICH9R Raid Controller. WHOOT!

NOTE: This worked for me even though I do not even have the RAID drives installed yet.

Thank you all again. Note also that I recommend that anyone who thinks they may, at some time in the future, want to add a RAID setup to an existing Vista install, do this now - there is no harm in having the raid controller run your non-raid drives. (If I am wrong, please correct.)

Anyways, thanks for saving me hours of headaches, and the pain of reinstalling Vista!

[b1lk1]

Eliprand is a genius.

Look above at Eliprand's post, wherein he describes editing the registry of "iaStor" to Start = 0x4, and editing "iaStorV" to Start = 0x0. THAT IS THE KEY.

Works perfect for Vista 64, my new RAID 1 array is working perfectly! Saved me a painful reinstall!

[psi4eva]

After reading through this thread, I began to think that enabling ICH10R RAID on an IDE installed OS would have been a nightmare, considering this would be for Windows 7 Beta. Oh the sheer simplicity, of it.

Here's some specs,

i7 965 EE
Asus Rampage II Extreme - bios 1001 - ICH10R
12Gb Corsair TR3X6G1600C8D @ 1600Mhz
2x EVGA GTX 295
1x WD3000HLFS 300Gb
OS - Windows 7 6.1.7000

This has been running for the most part stable and was setup using IDE enhanced in the BIOS under Sata Configured To

The addition is to be 4x WD1001FALS (4x 1Tb) to be run in RAID 5.

On adding the drives to the system and booting Windows without changing anything they are visible as 4 normal independant drives. Thats a start.

Going back to the BIOS and changing Sata Configured To to RAID, adding the 4 new drives to a RAID 5 array via the ROM option and booting resulted in the system rebooting during OS Startup (safe mode, normal, repair). hmmmm

The SOLUTION.

Changed the BIOS back to IDE Enhanced so Windows could boot.

In the Windows\System32\Drivers folder is a file called iaStorV.sys installed by OS by default.

Into the registry we go.

Navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorV

Change REG_DWORD "Start" from 3 to 0

Reboot

Go into the BIOS and change Sata Configured To to RAID

Windows should boot as normal, no lockups or BSOD's and you should see it installing Device Drivers followed by Device Installed Successfully.

I tested it prior to installing the Intel Storage Matrix v8.7.0.1007 (current as @ 18/2/09) and it worked fine.

I installed the Intel Storage Matrix software anyway to gain access to the Storage Console component and on reboot it worked just as good.

Long story short, ICH10R with Windows 7 required the modification of a single digit to enable RAID functionality right out of the box. No reg. keys, no copy/pastes, no prayers.

Anyway I think that wraps it up, try at your own risk and always backup first, unlike me

If I have skipped anything please ask and I'll do what I can to clarify.

Cheers,

PSi4EVA

[210]

I got the same MB (Asus P5QL-E, intel P43/ICH10R) and followed all the steps.

IaStor.sys is in "C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers"
iastor-ahci+raid.reg added to registry
Checked for the reg keys to be in their place (for AHCI - that's what i need to enable)

Rebooted in AHCI mode (Windows XP pro sp3 was installed in IDE mode).

It behaves as if i had done nothing. Bluescreen and reboot.

Did you do anything else but mizaring's guide to make windows boot in AHCI on Asus P5QL-E?


Hope to get an answer soon. Thank you all in advance!

@mizaring

Thanks for the update for Intel ICH10 and I tested it on a new Asus M/B P5QL-E (Intel P43) with Seagate ST3500320AS for XP Pro SP3, it works!!

For those who want to know how to enable hard drive NCQ with AHCI which was the reason for me to use AHCI in the first place, according to the information on Seagate's web site, it is by default enabled, if you are using AHCI and it can not be changed by end user level as it is on the firmware level (for those HDDs support NCQ).

Thanks and hope this will help others too.

[210]

Thanks to Google (and google Chrome, my browser) i've found an answer to my pray
I'll just copy/paste below the solution that worked for me:

Here's how I got AHCI working with ICH10R on an XP SP3 32bit install, Asus P5QL-E motherboard, Samsung F1 SATA drives, Optiarc AD-7200S SATA DVDR.
NO XP reinstall or registry hacks needed, just updated drivers, it just took a few minutes.

Backup system first.
D/L Intel Matrix F6 floppy creation s/w.
Create the F6 floppy and copy the several files to C:\AHCI. Also copy one of them, iaStor.sys to Windows\system32 as well (not sure if this is strictly necessary, I think it may stop an error message though).

In Device Manager's IDE Controllers section, right click and update driver on 'Intel ICH10 Family 2 port serial ATA Controller 2-3a26'. Use the options 'Install from a list or specific location', 'Don't search, I will choose the driver to install' and navigate to C:\AHCI and choose iaAHCI.inf as directed. Don't reboot.
Do the last bit all again for the similarly named 4 port driver and choose the default .inf file as offered. Ignore all warnings about the drivers not being compatible, this is true because the drives are currently in IDE mode in the BIOS.

Reboot and go into BIOS to change SATA drive mode from IDE to AHCI. Go into Windows, there should be no crashes.
XP finds new hardware, reboot again and all done.

In Device Manager, the IDE section now has one driver, 'Intel® ICH10R SATA AHCI Controller'.

[Methanoid]

Am I missing something here... (and I admit I could be!!!)

If I have two new HDs or SSDs and want to RAID them, I set it in BIOS and then install XP or whatever and insert the floppy with drivers when prompted (or make an integrated install DVD with drivers pre-configured).

Is this thread just about how to NOT reinstall the OS? If so I think I'd rather re-install as fresh install normally works better anyway.

[210]

I would really like to see you "re-installing a fresh install" after you've spent 1 week to configure your system and apps the way you want them.... )

My system boots just fine now with AHCI enabled in BIOS, after using the method i've copy/pasted in my last post above from another forum i've found about this topic.

God bless google and you all!

[Methanoid]

I would really like to see you "re-installing a fresh install" after you've spent 1 week to configure your system and apps the way you want them.... )

My system boots just fine now with AHCI enabled in BIOS, after using the method i've copy/pasted in my last post above from another forum i've found about this topic.

God bless google and you all!

Re-install and full customisation of either of my 3 systems takes me about 40 mins from boot to finish

I built a custom unattended install DVD. I have my XP, Office, and all programs, desktop customisations and the lot.. all done for me...Only thing I need to do is supply the machine's name

[AlexeyB]

Has anybody tried to install necessary driver using the Vista Startup Repair? (I haven't, I just want to figure out if it works.) Something like this:

0) Backup the system disk.
1) Copy Intel driver to a diskette.
2) Restart the system, enter BIOS and set AHCI or RAID controller mode.
3) Insert the Vista DVD, boot from it, on the second screen instead of "Install now" select "Repair your computer".
4) I suppose that the Vista operating system will not be listed (because there are no drivers by default), so click "Load drivers" and load them from the diskette.
5) ... etc...

Will it work?

UPDATE:
I tried it, and it doesn't work. I set AHCI mode, then I tried to repair the system. The repair procedure recognized Vista, and it loaded Intel RAID driver, but it was not able to complete repair and it didn't add the driver to the system.
It didn't work also when I tried to set RAID mode, to load AHCI driver, etc.
A pity.

[210]

Something is wrong and I have no clue what can it be...

I've first enabled AHCI without XP reinstall.
Worked just fine for a while but about 1 week ago, one morning, my computer was displaying a black screen with the "A read disk error occurred. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart.".

After getting this error 3-4 times i've thought that it may be caused by the AHCI install without reinstalling XP so I did reinstall XP and enabled AHCI with the F6 method. I also installed JMicron controller (JMB36x - latest WHQL) with the F6 method.

So, fresh XP, AHCI enabled using F6, clean system and the error keeps showing.
I've googled a lot for this problem but seems that no one has a "solving" for this one.

Interesting thing, as i've observed till now, is that i don't get this error when i boot but just if my system is idle for some time. If i work on the machine it doesn't crash even if i use HDDs a lot.

EX: I've left Norton 360 scanning all my drives but in the morning the error was on the screen again.
I've checked in the System Tools > Event Viewer > System and according to my "calculations" the error showed after Norton 360 finished scanning and my system was most probably idle.

Does anyone have any clue about this problem?


My system:
CPU:
Intel Pentium 4 540 - 3.20GHz (Hyper Threading) - L2 Cache: 1MB
MB:
Asus P5QL-E (P43/ICH10R)
HDD:
WD 320GB (WDC WD3200AAKS-22B3A0) - SATA II
Seagate 200GB (ST3200822AS) - SATA
Seagte 80GB (ST380817AS) - SATA
Optical:
NEC (_NEC DVD_RW ND-3520AW)
Asus (ASUS DRW-2014S1T)
Virtual Drive:
Daemon Tools Lite (HWL 527C5IRO1U SCSI CdRom Device)
RAM:
4x1GB Kingston HyperX (2 almost same dual kitts - KHX8500D2K2/2GN + KHX8500D2K2/2G)
Graphic Card:
Asus EN6600TD - 256Mb
Sound Card:
Creative Audigy 4 Pro (no drivers yet installed after this XP reinstall)
PWR:
Antec NeoPower 650 Blue
Enclosure:
Antec - metallic miditower (forgot the model name)
OS:
Windows XP Pro - SP2 (updated to SP3 + all other necessary updates)


Another strange thing:
On this new XP/AHCI install, using a Western Digital HDD Tool it says that my HDDs are okay - no error (same as Check Disk showed) but it shows my Seagate (SATA I) HDDs as being IDE and only the WD HDD (SATA II) as being SATA...

[olehaus]

I have successfully made a reg fix for the ICH7M (Mobile) chipset on FSC E8110 laptop. It may work for other ICH7M platforms as well but no guarantee. I used the Matrix Storage drivers from Fujitsu-Siemens, version 5.5.0.1035.

Just follow the instructions in the first post but use the below text instead.

This has been tried for AHCI only as my computer does not support RAID.

Start Notepad and copy the following lines:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_8086&dev_27c5&cc_0106]
"Service"="iaStor"
"ClassGUID"="{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor]
"Type"=dword:00000001
"Start"=dword:00000000
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"Tag"=dword:00000019
"ImagePath"="system32\\drivers\\iaStor.sys"
"DisplayName"="Intel AHCI Controller"
"Group"="SCSI Miniport"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters]
"queuePriorityEnable"=dword:00000000
"AtapiOnPrimary"=dword:ffffffff
"AtapiOnSecondary"=dword:ffffffff

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port0]
"AN"=dword:00000000
"LPM"=dword:00000001
"LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
"GTF"=dword:00000001
"DIPM"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port2]
"AN"=dword:00000000
"LPM"=dword:00000001
"LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
"GTF"=dword:00000001
"DIPM"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Enum]
"0"="PCI\\VEN_8086&DEV_27C5&SUBSYS_138710CF&REV_02\\3&b1bfb68&0&FA"
"Count"=dword:00000001
"NextInstance"=dword:00000001

Save as ICH7M.reg and use this file.

OJ

[Xcetera]

Thanks gLk*zaP got it to work.

My experiences:

I have a P5E-VM HDMI mb(G35 ICH9R), E8400 Windows XP Pro (32-bit) where I wanted to enable AHCI in BIOS.

I am planning to add another hard drive to install Windows 7 RC1 and enable AHCI but didn't want to keep switching between AHCI and IDE when I wanted to boot between the hard drives for the various OS's.

I tried downloading from Intel the latest Storage Manager Software and expanding it as suggested. Just could not get it to work. What I did tried to do was hit Start/Run and pointed it to the download, nothing, a dialog box popped up and said it could not find the file.

I found a workaround. I downloaded from Asus their latest Intel Matrix Storage Manager Driver for my mb. Unzipped it and found the IaStor.sys file and did as you suggested dropping it into C:\Windows\system32\drivers\ Ran the AHCI.reg file. Restarted the computer, went into BIOS and changed from IDE to AHCI and rebooted. It started fine and windows found new hardware I picked cancel and ran the program I earlier downloaded from ASUS. All is well. Now in device manager I see under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers Intel ICH9 SATA AHCI controller

Something weird though, I tried downloading Ahci.reg file in Firefox and it wouldn't save, I tried with IE8 and its worked.

Onto phase II adding a new hard drive and Windows 7.

[lodore]

Hello,
I have a asus P5k-wifi mobo with the lastest non beta bios.

When i changed sata to AHCI in my bios it wont finish post anymore. it gets stuck at checking AHCI port 5..
the only way to be able to post again is to unplug my hard drives. once i change back to ide mode i can plug my hard drives back in and works as normal.

any idea why i cant post once i change sata to AHCI mode?

feel free to ask for more info.

Thanks in advance.

[kalniel]

any idea why i cant post once i change sata to AHCI mode?

I've seen this many times. Often SATA ports have different controllers - some will be one colour and controlled by the southbridge directly, others a different colour and controlled by a jmicron chip. Try switching your hard drive to a different coloured port first of all. If that doesn't work, try disabling the jmicron chip (if there's a bios option for that) - and then try switching ports again incase you're now using the jmicron ports.

Failing that, try updating the BIOS, but AHCI has always caused me more trouble than it's worth.