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AHCI not available, what to do?

D

DukeN

Golden Member
So decided to upgrade one of my desktops to an SSD with Win 7 finally, and after much annoyances (HSF pushpins breaking, 3.5 enclosure holes not lining up, etc) finally got it all ready.

Upon booting with the Win 7 DVD, I got a STOP error with 0 x0000005 error code after Win 7 went through it's loading and "Starting Windows" displays.

I thought this may be as I forgot to set the BIOS to AHCI, but I could not find any setting for that in the BIOS. The board I have is a gigabyte n650iSLI - DS4.

The bizarre thing is that Win 7 didn't even seem to give an option to press F6 or F8 to load a driver (I would've thought that it would've came with one).

Is my only option at this point to install a SATA card that supports AHCI, or change the mobo?

Any ideas would be appreciated. Drive is the $199 Dane-Elec Intel G1 from Newegg.

Thanks

PS: Gigabyte adds this lame line when I search for AHCI but that setting is not available anywhere in the BIOS settings, in the newest version of the BIOS or the previous 1.

http://www.gigabyte.us/Support/Motherboard/FAQ_Model.aspx?FAQID=5250&ProductID=2514&ClassValue=
 
This link isn't probably the most help, but the registry setting in Windows will let you change if AHCI is enabled or not on the OS side. Adjusting this value may allow you to boot with your current HW settings.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

I wasn't thinking right when I installed Win7 myself, and did not enable AHCI until after the install. This edit let me change the O/S to line-up with the AHCI setting I then changed in BIOS.

As to the BIOS, I don't the proper setting. Usually this is listed as "IDE Mode" or "Compatibility Mode" in most BIOS systems.
 
Upon booting with the Win 7 DVD, I got a STOP error with 0 x0000005 error code after Win 7 went through it's loading and "Starting Windows" displays.
Click to expand...
Has nothing to do with AHCI. Windows 7 works if you don't have AHCI you know... Now you are SUPPOSED to enable AHCI for GREATER PERFORMANCE; but that doesn't mean windows fails without it.
 
DukeN said:
I thought this may be as I forgot to set the BIOS to AHCI, but I could not find any setting for that in the BIOS. The board I have is a gigabyte n650iSLI - DS4.
Click to expand...
AHCI was pretty much Intel-only for the first couple-three years. During this time, NVIDIA implemented its own proprietary 'AHCI', but couldn't refer to it as AHCI because that is the title/name of a protected standard and it didn't fully comply with the Intel AHCI standards.

There should be options for SATA (Native) or RAID mode. Either one is NVIDIA's proprietary equivalent of AHCI and supports all the usual AHCI features such as NCQ, hot-plug/swap, etc.
 
This is pretty retarded, I took another stab at it today with a different HD (1TB SATA platter drive) - same exact result.
But I can install XP 64bit on either one no problem.

The stupid thing bluescreens before I get to the pretty Windows screen with the "load driver" option.

Any ideas guys?

Thanks again
 
Go into the BIOS and load safe defaults. F10 and Reboot. Reinstall. IIRC, it has something to do with drivers in Win7. Once the OS is installed you should be able to make changes in the BIOS.

FWIW, just set the hdd to IDE. AHCI doesn't add any performance.
 
During the Win7 install, it should have asked you where you wanted to install Windows. It'd have to see a hard drive to do that, which means that The BIOS was able to see the disk and Win7 had a driver for your disk controller already. If it didn't, it would have said, "I can't find a hard disk" and would have asked for a disk controller driver.

No, I don't know what's causing the 0x00000005 error, but it appears that everything was already in place for disk control. Have you done a memory test?
 
Last edited:
Unfortunately it bluescreens before I get to the screen where I select storage for install, or choose a drive.

Sonnydaze, thanks for the suggestion - I will try it when I get home tonight and give it a go and let you know.
 
It sounds like WIN7 does not like that Gigabyte MOBO you are using since it failed with 2 different drives and based on what you have posted ref using XP64. Is there a BIOS update available?
 
Yellowbeard said:
It sounds like WIN7 does not like that Gigabyte MOBO you are using since it failed with 2 different drives and based on what you have posted ref using XP64. Is there a BIOS update available?
Click to expand...

Not since 2007. Yay for an impulse buy on a gigabyte board based on a not too common chipset lol.

Appreciate all your help guys - I'm giving Gigabyte support one last chance to send me an answer before I look for a used s775 board.

Thanks again.
 
SonnyDaze said:
Go into the BIOS and load safe defaults. F10 and Reboot. Reinstall. IIRC, it has something to do with drivers in Win7. Once the OS is installed you should be able to make changes in the BIOS.

FWIW, just set the hdd to IDE. AHCI doesn't add any performance.
Click to expand...

Thank you Sir, I owe you a beer or two for this one.

This fixed it but I could not see any visible changes in the BIOS related to IDE/SATA/RAID related settings, or any other for example.

Thanks for all your help guys.
 
DukeN said:
Thank you Sir, I owe you a beer or two for this one.

This fixed it but I could not see any visible changes in the BIOS related to IDE/SATA/RAID related settings, or any other for example.

Thanks for all your help guys.
Click to expand...

Memory timings, clock frequencies, and voltages can also play a role. If you had an overclock going on that could have been the culprit.
 
CurseTheSky said:
Memory timings, clock frequencies, and voltages can also play a role. If you had an overclock going on that could have been the culprit.
Click to expand...

I know, but this is the stock rig for the boss's home office so no OCing or anything. Just a stock Q6700 with 8 Gigs (MEMTested last week).

Might've been some overlooked detail like Enable Floppy Support or similar.
 
I had a simlar problem - couldn't install Windows 7 at all on my PC with a Foxconn P965 based motherboard. The isntallation would just crash partway through. I was attempting to install Windows 7 ultimate 32-bit (received free through a conference). I was just about to give up, when I tried installing it over my existing Windows XP install. For someone, the installation worked perfectly when intalled over Windows XP, but failed everytime I tried a fresh install on any hard drive. Very frusterating, as I really wanted a clean install, but in the end everything is working well.

So maybe try installing XP, and then Win 7 on top of it. Only way I could get it to install.
 
AHCI is such a pain in the butt but finally got it working. Still not sure why sometimes Windows 7 would install fine but other times hang the end of installation. Really strange. Just made a image after it was done installing so I never have that problem again.

This will be my last SSD for a while. To me they are just not worth it. Sure they are faster but not enough. At least not in my opinion compared to my older Western Digital Raptor 10,000 rpm. It is nice to have when waiting for loading screens but that is about it. Not enough difference though. Glad I didn't spend to much on mine.
 
DukeN said:
Thank you Sir, I owe you a beer or two for this one.

This fixed it but I could not see any visible changes in the BIOS related to IDE/SATA/RAID related settings, or any other for example.

Thanks for all your help guys.
Click to expand...

Glad you got it fixed! :thumbsup:

I had similar problems with two different Gigabyte mobos and Windows 7. Both Gigabyte boards were different platforms as well (an Intel and AMD board).
 
SonnyDaze said:
Go into the BIOS and load safe defaults. F10 and Reboot. Reinstall. IIRC, it has something to do with drivers in Win7. Once the OS is installed you should be able to make changes in the BIOS.

FWIW, just set the hdd to IDE. AHCI doesn't add any performance.
Click to expand...

That is so untrue for SSDs it is not even funny.
 
SonnyDaze said:
Go into the BIOS and load safe defaults. F10 and Reboot. Reinstall. IIRC, it has something to do with drivers in Win7. Once the OS is installed you should be able to make changes in the BIOS.

FWIW, just set the hdd to IDE. AHCI doesn't add any performance.
Click to expand...

Gotta have it for TRIM.
 
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