Setting up AHCI

[moosey]

I'll have a Raptor and another WD SATA HDD setup, but no RAID. Instead of setting them up like regular IDE, I wanted to set it up AHCI for the benefits. I was just wondering how to exactly set it up since I've never done this.

I understand that I need to do the F6 during Windows setup to load the drivers. Then after that select AHCI in BIOS. After that though, do I need to do anything else, like set anything in device manager?

Thanks

 

[phile]

Set the SATA drive mode to AHCI *before* starting the install. Then, load the ICH7R SATA/AHCI (desktop) driver (see below for link) by hitting F6 during the install. The floppy you will prepare will have all the drivers for the ICH7R and ICH8R chipsets, so make sure to scroll the list if you don't see the proper driver.

Intel Matrix Storage Manager drivers:
http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts...ct_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2101&lang=eng

Choose your OS and then scroll down to the Utilities, Tools and Examples section for the makedisk utility.

-phil

 

[moosey]

Thanks a lot, that helps me out. Do I have to do anything in Windows once installed (like anything in device manager)?

 

[phile]

Nope. Once you've loaded the drivers, during the install, you're done. If you want the Intel Matrix Storage Manager console, reinstall the drivers using the exe (download available on the same page as the makedisk utility). The console is just a simple monitoring interface. When you run it, it will list all devices currently managed by the driver, and which native features are available on each device.

-phil