BIOS doesn't see HDDs after AHCI enabled

[frankbo]

When I have AHCI mode disabled, both HDDs and DVD-RW (all three are SATA) are recognized by BIOS. When I enable AHCI mode, after boot the AHCI driver loads and in its text it recognizes the devices, but once it completes and I go to the BIOS screen, the BIOS does not show any of my SATA devices. I've systematically gone through my BIOS settings that I've changed, and AHCI mode is the one that causes the problem.

The drives are all good, I think. I'm reading elsewhere that I may need to update my SATA drivers, but I don't have Windows installed yet (this is how everyone seems to do the update). I'm planning on having XP on one drive but either OSX or Fedora on the other, and I'll be doing the non-XP install before I do the XP.

So is my problem the SATA driver? How can I update the chipset driver without having any OS installed? Am I making any sense re: chipset drivers? Or is my problem something to do with the mobo? I only have 4 SATA slots, so it's not like I'm plugging these devices into the wrong location. There's only one place for SATA and that's where they're plugged.

Any help is appreciated

Hardware:
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
Samsung HD501LJ 500GB
Seagate ST380815AS 80GB
Samsung DVDRW
Kingston HyperX 2x2GB DDR2-800

 

[gunslinger5577]

Frankbo,

Typically you can download a bootable version of the chipset driver that you can install via floppy disk during the O/S install. You actually load it into the OS install front end before the OS is installed so the drives can be recognized. Also be wary that not all SATA drives support AHCI, I was bitten by this fact with an early SATA drive that did not and ended up being corrupted and needed a reformat after I tried to use it with AHCI.

GS

 

[frankbo]

Yes, gunslinger, you're on to the right tack with SATA support of AHCI. After a few days of searching, I've learned that the ICH9 chipset on my mobo only supports AHCI for 2 of the 4 SATA ports and this AHCI support is only available to windows vista--which makes me wonder if it's true AHCI or if Vista just lists the drives as being AHCI even though they aren't. This is a fact that Gigabyte strangely ignores in their description of the board and claims of AHCI capability.

Anyhow, as I'd like AHCI support but am otherwise very happy with Gigabyte boards (except for the location of the ATX 12V on the DS3 series), I've exchanged the board for the DS3R, which uses the ICH9R chipset. I don't need RAID, but it'll be nice having AHCI for 6 SATA drives instead of 2.

 

[MerlinRML]

ICH9 doesn't support AHCI mode at all. ICH9R supports AHCI (and RAID) for up to 6 ports. The 2 ports you're looking at are probably running off an additional onboard controller (think Silicon Image, Jmicron, or Marvell), not your ICH9/R.

As for driver support, Windows XP/2003 do not have native drivers for AHCI, thus you will need a driver floppy during the OS install to see the AHCI controller. Windows Vista and most newer linuxes should have the appropriate drivers already available.


As for the other poster who had problems with AHCI, hard drives themselves should not have anything to do with support of AHCI. If you had problems, it was probably either a controller problem or a firmware bug in the drive that only showed itself when you enabled AHCI due to additional features that are included with AHCI mode. My guess would be something to do with spinup or NCQ.