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

[Fellwalker]

I've have two "WD Caviar Green WD10EADS 1 TB" HDDs. Yet I'm just using the one of them, but would like to setup a RAID 1 without reinstalling my Windows 7 64-bit. I have an Asus P6T Deluxe v2 motherborad.

I've downloaded this driver from the support-site:
Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager Driver V8.9.0.1023 for Windows 32/64bit XP & Windows 32/64bit Vista & 32/64bit Windows 7.(WHQL) Intel(R) AHCI/RAID Driver Disk for Windows 32/64bit XP & Windows 32/64bit Vista & 32/64bit Windows 7.
Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager Driver V8.9.0.1023 for Windows 32/64bit XP & Windows 32/64bit Vista & 32/64bit Windows 7.(WHQL)
Intel(R) AHCI/RAID Driver Disk for Windows 32/64bit XP & Windows 32/64bit Vista & 32/64bit Windows 7.

But when I try to install the driver I get this error:
This computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing the software

Why do I get this error? I've just connectet the new drive do my SATA, but i can see it in "Disk management" in Windows 7. The Partition style is MBR but all space is unallocated.

Thanks for your answers!

Don't worry, you are not cracking up, and it is a badly worded error message!
That was the message I was getting on my Asus P5k-E. It was because I did not have RAID originally on the main SATA controller. Whilst you can apparently subsequently tell the BIOS to use RAID, windows does not have the driver, and cannot install that driver unless it knows about there being a RAID controller. And you can't tell it about a RAID controller while you are using it in IDE mode. So it thinks the system does not have a RAID controller, so it does not meet the minimum specification. At least, that is how I have rationalised the message.

It took me two full days to wade through all of the registry hacks on various sites including this one, and find none worked for me.

Also along the way, I had thought that I had made changes to the BIOS, but there was a brief message on the screen which said something along the lines of "not enough flash memory to enable options". Maddeningly it only has 64k to cover all settings. So changes had not "taken".

I had bought a pair of 1TB WD Caviar Black hard disks, but they were proving useless. I used the method outlined in post 92 by tooshio, but had to do it through a PCI card SATA controller as I did don't have an IDE hard disk to put on the other controller with the DVD drive.
Windows immediately recognised the PCI SATA card and installed it.

I attached my C drive to the additional controller, then disabled (in BIOS) all of the other controllers except the main IDE one. Only the C drive was now attached. I had to make sure it was recognised in BIOS as the boot disk. That gave enough BIOS flash memory to change the settings on the onboard controller to enable RAID. Several reboots ensued, and finally I had got it right and Windows recognised the RAID controller. As tooshio says, don't allow windows to install the RAID controller from its found hardware dialogue. Instead (post 92 item 8) install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager, and continue. Reboot and once Windows has recognised the RAID controller properly I then shut down, put the C drive back onto the main controller and made sure it would boot up. (Remembering to change the BIOS boot order again!) And use the correct SATA ports. Not sure of your motherboard, but on mine 1-3 and 6 are bootable SATA ports in red.

THEN, I physically removed the PCI card, and added both hard disks (on SATA 4 and 5 as I was only using them as data disks.) BUT I did not yet set up a RAID array in BIOS. I had to initialise and register (I think that was the term) the hard disks first. In Windows XP, that is done through Disk Manager which you will find by right clicking "My Computer" and choosing "Manage". One of the options is the hard disks. Use this to make sure you have the drive letters you want on each drive. I had to move one of them to S (after all the memory card drive spaces) to give me space to put my D drive where I wanted it, and then bring it back to E.
Once they were showing in explorer, it was another reboot, and this time I went in to the RAID array options, and set up the RAID 1 array with my two new hard disks. As they were empty it was very quick. On booting, Windows recognises them as one disk. I was then able to use the Clone software downloaded from WD website to copy my data to the new drive. (The software is actually Acronis, and only works if you have a WD hard disk. For anyone else reading this, Maxtor/Seagate also has their version of it for download, and I guess most others do too.)

What a clart on it was. I hope that my explanation helps and apologise for it being long winded. I see you have Windows 7 and hope that when I get my copy and install it, all will work. My issues arose because of wanting to get more space for my photos, and enough space to install Windows 7 on its own drive.

[famich]

Thanks , Mizaring, I hope you ll be reading this at least after some time !
Thanks to your info I ve managed to install AHCI on an existing XP installation on my rig today.

Your registry tweak worked flawlessly ! 1000 thanks and all the best in 2010 !!

[Pob255]

Hello. At first - my English language is not good, then I'm sorry for all mistakes ;D

I have a simply way to enable AHCI/RAID for systems installed on IDE, for example - is not important what chip you have in your system: ICH7R / 8R / 9R etc.

The only thing needed to do this, is second controller available on your motherboard. In my system, this is JMicron (GSATA or similar - I have Gigabyte P35C-DS3R motherboard). You'll need the newest version of the Intel Matrix Storage Console (in my case it was v8.9)

Also:

0. Make sure you have backup of your important data !!!!

1. Download a driver for second controller, preferably from manufacturer of your motherboard.

2. Turn off your computer, unconnect all unnecesary drives except system drive.

3. Attach your system drive to your second controller on motherboar (e.g. JMicron or another you have)

4. In BIOS, DO NOT CHANGE for now settings in ICHxR to AHCI/RAID.

5. In BIOS, activate your second controller and be sure your HDD will boot from them.

6. Start Windows XP (tested on WinXP 32-bit, SP3), Windows will recognize your new controller and install necessary drivers (you need to have them on disk C

7. Turn off Windows, restart your computer, go into BIOS and then turn on RAID/AHCI mode in ICHxR controller options.

8. Restart your system, Windows probably will ask you for drivers for Intel RAID/AHCI controller. Cancel this window and install Intel Matrix Storage Manager.

9. Close Windows, restart system again. Windows now has recognized ICHxR in AHCI/RAID mode. Be sure and check this in Control Panel / System / Hardware / Device Manager, in SCSI & RAID Controllers tab. When all is OK, you should see entry: "Intel(R) ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R/DO/PCH SATA RAID Controller"

10. Turn off your system.

11. Disconnect SATA cable from second controller and attach to the ICHxR controller.

12. Restart your system - if you have no BSOD, then all is OK!

13. Turn off your system again and attach all HDD's and optical drives you deattached in 2.

14. Start Windows & enjoy - you have AHCI active, or you can build RAID, if you prefer.


...if my English language is so terrible as I think, please copy all above, edit and post it again

Just been bashing my head against a brick wall trying to get AHCI mode activated on my p55 system, and this very handy trick worked first time

[Apex]

Have they renamed Intel Matrix Storage Manager to Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology ?

[Gaucho]

I have found an easier way in XP.

Go to control panel.
Add new Hardware.
Yes I have already connected the hardware.
Add a new hardware device.
Install the hardware that I manually select from a list.
List all hardware devices.
Click have disk.
Browse to where you have downloaded the driver (inf file) O.K.
This should give you a list where you can select your controller.
Select and click next.

The controller will be installed but under device manager you will see the error message 10 "cannot start device" but the driver and reg entries will have been installed.

Now make a ghost (or similar) recovery image of your system on a drive you will not be using in the RAID set up.

Re-start your computer with your RAID disks attached and enable RAID in the bios.

Using your Ghost recovery disk (which you should have already added the RAID drivers to) recover your PC to the RAID set.

Upon re-booting XP will start and once logged in tell you that the software for your new device has been installed and ask you to re-boot again.

Done.

[Stegmut]

Although this thread is a bit old, I also wanted to thank the almighty Tooshio for the great advice on getting RAID10 working on Windows XP with an integrated intel raid controller (ICH10R on Gigabyte ep45-ud3p).

The registry tweaks mentioned earlier in this thread did not successfully implement RAID on my existing XP install (although AHCI installed fine). I was about to give up hope (and suffer from a massive migraine) when I tried Tooshio's shockingly simple and effective instructions. I had to re-read them several times to make sure I wasn't missing something.

I spent an embarrassing amount of time searching the web for a resolution, and this was the only one that worked for me. your mileage may vary.

I owe you a beer if you're ever in LA, Tooshio!

Hello. At first - my English language is not good, then I'm sorry for all mistakes ;D

I have a simply way to enable AHCI/RAID for systems installed on IDE, for example - is not important what chip you have in your system: ICH7R / 8R / 9R etc.

The only thing needed to do this, is second controller available on your motherboard. In my system, this is JMicron (GSATA or similar - I have Gigabyte P35C-DS3R motherboard). You'll need the newest version of the Intel Matrix Storage Console (in my case it was v8.9)

Also:

0. Make sure you have backup of your important data !!!!

1. Download a driver for second controller, preferably from manufacturer of your motherboard.

2. Turn off your computer, unconnect all unnecesary drives except system drive.

3. Attach your system drive to your second controller on motherboar (e.g. JMicron or another you have)

4. In BIOS, DO NOT CHANGE for now settings in ICHxR to AHCI/RAID.

5. In BIOS, activate your second controller and be sure your HDD will boot from them.

6. Start Windows XP (tested on WinXP 32-bit, SP3), Windows will recognize your new controller and install necessary drivers (you need to have them on disk C

7. Turn off Windows, restart your computer, go into BIOS and then turn on RAID/AHCI mode in ICHxR controller options.

8. Restart your system, Windows probably will ask you for drivers for Intel RAID/AHCI controller. Cancel this window and install Intel Matrix Storage Manager.

9. Close Windows, restart system again. Windows now has recognized ICHxR in AHCI/RAID mode. Be sure and check this in Control Panel / System / Hardware / Device Manager, in SCSI & RAID Controllers tab. When all is OK, you should see entry: "Intel(R) ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R/DO/PCH SATA RAID Controller"

10. Turn off your system.

11. Disconnect SATA cable from second controller and attach to the ICHxR controller.

12. Restart your system - if you have no BSOD, then all is OK!

13. Turn off your system again and attach all HDD's and optical drives you deattached in 2.

14. Start Windows & enjoy - you have AHCI active, or you can build RAID, if you prefer.


...if my English language is so terrible as I think, please copy all above, edit and post it again

[trungdong]

Thank you very much for the guide. This problem has manage to frustrate me several times. Now I can forget about it.
Cheers.

[THESERG]

@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.

Thanks Notme, everything worked for me.

[yprpb]

I registered just so that I could thank everyone for the great advice on this thread!

I successfully used the instructions of post#44 to migrate my Dell Precision T3500 desktop with 32-bit XP Pro from "raid ready" to RAID 1 without reinstalling or restoring OS or data.

I used the Intel "Rapid Storage" drivers/app version 9.6.0.1014. Once I had the new drivers and the Rapid Storage app running, after installing a second, blank (uninitialized) hard drive, a balloon popped up and asked me if I wanted to protect my system using RAID.

On a slightly related note, I was also able to use Macrium Reflect, version 4.2 (paid/full version), to backup(image) and restore the partitions on my RAID1 array. I did this when upgrading my 160 GB drives to 320 GB drives. Reflect allows you to create easily a bootable Bart PE rescue CD that includes the Intel RAID drivers, so backup and restore operations from the rescue CD see the RAID array, not the individual member disks. All I had to do was install the new disks, use the Intel BIOS interface to create a new RAID array on the disks, boot the Reflect rescue disk, and then start the restore.

[tom barracus]

I registered also to let people know it did not work for me but im using ICH10.

I followed your methods after it not working i additionally activated AHCI driver in registry as directed from microsoft and hey presto.

support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

[DAOWAce]

Here's the update for Intel ICH10 on Windows XP to enable BOTH AHCI & RAID at the same time. So if you installed Windows XP in IDE mode (without AHCI or RAID) or you installed Windows in AHCI mode and would like to switch to RAID (or from RAID to AHCI) here's what to do :

- Download the storage manager 32 bits floppy zip file and "RAID/AHCI Software - Intel® Matrix Storage Manager" on Intel website. (Sorry 1st post, can't post URL)

- Extract iaStor.sys to "C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers"

- Create a file named iastor-ahci+raid.reg and copy this content into it :

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_8086&dev_3a22&cc_0106]
"ClassGUID"="{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}"
"Service"="iaStor"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_8086&dev_2822&cc_0104]
"ClassGUID"="{4D36E97B-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}"
"Service"="iaStor"

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

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters]
"queuePriorityEnable"=dword:00000000
"BusType"=dword:00000003

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

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port1]
"AN"=dword:00000000
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
"GTF"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

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

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port3]
"AN"=dword:00000000
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
"GTF"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port4]
"AN"=dword:00000000
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
"GTF"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters\Port5]
"AN"=dword:00000000
"LPM"=dword:00000000
"LPMSTATE"=dword:00000000
"LPMDSTATE"=dword:00000001
"GTF"=dword:00000000
"DIPM"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Enum]
"0"="PCI\\VEN_8086&DEV_3A22&SUBSYS_B0051458&REV_00\\3&13c0b0c5&0&FA"
"1"="PCI\\VEN_8086&DEV_2822&SUBSYS_B0001458&REV_02\\3&13c0b0c5&0&FA"
"Count"=dword:00000002
"NextInstance"=dword:00000002

- Merge the registry file iastor-ahci+raid.reg

- Reboot and change the mode to IDE, AHCI or RAID in the BIOS. If you were using a RAID to boot make sure that you know what you do before rebooting, taking apart a RAID will likely break your windows installation.

- When you're back in Windows, install the "RAID/AHCI Software - Intel® Matrix Storage Manager" to finish the process.

Please note that I haven't tested this on any other hardware than my GA-EP45-DS4P motherboard from Gigabyte, but any P45 + ICH10 motherboard should work, as usual make a backup of your data before trying this!!! Changing the registry (particurarily the part that is responsible for the drivers required to boot) can lead to an unbootable OS, you've been warned!

Before you do this if you are booting in AHCI or RAID mode you should have one of the following registry key :

------------------------AHCI------------------------
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_8086&dev_3a22&cc_0106]
"ClassGUID"="{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}"
"Service"="iaStor"

------------------------RAID------------------------
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_8086&dev_2822&cc_0104]
"ClassGUID"="{4D36E97B-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}"
"Service"="iaStor"

If you don't have one of those keys and you're using AHCI or RAID you don't have the same ICH10 chip as me and should try to replicate my changes with the right ClassGUID and PCI Ids.

Quoting and responding so that if anyone comes across this thread from Google (like I did) they know that it will work for the P67 chipset boards under Vista x64.

At least; it did for me. I just applied the registry changes, copied the files, rebooted and changed access mode to RAID; no bluescreen!

[GoNz0]

as i have ditched the raid array i wanted to switch back to plain ACHI mode and got a BSOD, for all intents it should work so now i have to troll the entire thread

[GoNz0]

------------------------AHCI------------------------
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_8086&dev_3a22&cc_0106]
"ClassGUID"="{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}"
"Service"="iaStor"

If you don't have one of those keys and you're using AHCI or RAID you don't have the same ICH10 chip as me and should try to replicate my changes with the right ClassGUID and PCI Ids.

Good Luck!

and the winner is

[Galton]

Activating AHCI/RAID mode on mainboards with ICH8(R) southbridge

This is the section I followed to activate AHCI/RAID on My Asus P5B Deluxe.

Everything is working OK the only snag I got was at the time of the first reboot I selected AHCI in the bios and Windows would not even run the splash screen.

I selected RAID and it booted OK, installed the iata621.exe, rebooted and is running OK even if I do not have any RAID array just 2 single 1TB drives.

[bryan107]

Thanks 210. Trying all other methods.. I couldn't install AHCI driver for ICH10R chipset. Your method mentioned worked at last. Thank You... Keep up the good work....

[Galton]

This worked OK on my system under Windows XP 32. I am now using the system with the bios set to Raid and my two 1TB drives show as "Non Raid".
If I set the bios to AHCI then Windows would stop at the time of loading and reboot.

I have not set the two drives as a Raid Array yet.