Can windows 7 ahci controller run and boot from ssd and sata drives ?

[deustroop]

I expect the answer is yes but folks I asked are not clear. I run two identical sata hdds in ide mode. I want to run one ssd and one hdd. I know ahci needs to run the ssd.
Can the ahci driver run the two drives I have now ?

Two other questions--the best way to enable ahci and whether ahci will allow a boot into either drive ?

On installation--Can I hack the registry to enable ahci then change the bios to ahci and stay with the current set up ? If so then I can just replace a hdd with the ssd and copy over the system ?

The long way around --take out one hdd and replace with the ssd. Then change to the ahci driver and load windows. Will the hdd be accessible ? Probably but wont boot though.

What the best way to have ahci and a dual boot system with a mixed set of drives ?

TIA

 

[groberts101]

yes it can

existing IDE installs will need to be reg hacked for proper boot.

some clone tools will ruin W7's alignment but the popular ones will have no issue with it. I would caution against starting out a nice new fresh SSD with a used bitmap like that though and fresh is always best.

Best way I know is to leverage the different sata chips available on the mobo. Most will have a 3rd party JMicron, Marvell, or ASMedia controller these days and they are good about being sperately configurable in the bios. This way you can have different installs running on seperate sata chips and simply change boot order to load from the OS of choice. Very nice protocol if you're messing around with/maintaining raids too. Just be sure to have the SSD in ahci running off the native sata chip(Intel or AMD) for max performance of that drive. HDD isn't bottlenecked by any of the available sata chips so it won't matter much there anyways but would still be faster with AHCI's inherent NCQ support. :thumbsup:

 

[deustroop]

Got it done, thx
I performed the registry hack on HDD1 and set the bios to ahci. HDD1 booted good into windows and #2 was accessible. Shut down, replaced #2 with the SSD and booted into #1. Formatted the ssd and copied over #1 to the ssd.
Bingo : installed an ssd into a working system, no reinstall of Windows !

 

[BFG10K]

I cloned my OS from my WD Black onto my Intel 320 120GB SSD with Acronis and it worked perfectly. I even shrunk the partition during the clone process.

I’m still running under IDE mode to make sure everything is stable; so far so good.

 

[deustroop]

gotta go to ahci or your drive will slow slow slow.