How to install an AHCI SATA driver in Windows XP, Vista and Win7

[gugucom]

The link only works if you are registered at insanelymac. I have attached the script file to the first post. It should not be a problem to download it from there. I just tried and it worked.

Regarding a shorter howto I would recommend to read the section 5 "Installation" only. I cannot make it shorter than this.

 

[ildondeigiocchi]

Thanks for the help but I am registered on insanelymac and it doesn't seem to open it tells me that i don't have permission to access the file.

Take a look at the picture I uploaded. I'm logged in when I get it.

 

[ildondeigiocchi]

Never mind... got it to work. Forgot to validate the account. It's amazing what a clutz I can be at times. Thanks gugucom for your help

 

[gugucom]

You are welcome. Also read the comments in your transfer thread about the new setup.

 

[ildondeigiocchi]

I think the more important issue in Windows is the defragmentation option. If you have enabled defragmentation you will quickly damage your SSD because it is not designed to be defragged.

Windows SATA driver in Bootcamp standard is MS and not Intel. With TRIM and AHCI it means you can only use Vista and Win7 which come with an MS AHCI 1.0 driver in the standard. XP does not naturally have the AHCI driver. MS AHCI will be less performant than an Intel driver. But if TRIM gives you additional performance advantages it may be justified to use it. It is certainly not a problem to install.

Anand says that Intel are going to fix the issue with 32nm TRIM software expected to be released in the current quarter. That is one more reason to use the Intel 2nd Gen SSDs. They are superior even without TRIM and are max compatible with RAID cards.

I updated my Intel SSD to the latest firmware with improved TRIM support before installing the OS (Win 7 64-bit). Everything is superfast but I want to use AHCI drivers provided by Intel. Will this work in the current time? I really would like to take full advantage of the SSD and not use a crappy Microsoft AHCI driver. Also I have a question with regard to changing the values found in REGEDIT. I posted the question on the pic I provided.

 

[gugucom]

According to instructions you should only change the start value to zero.

I have been running my AHCI activated version of win7-64 without any problems after the Intel firmware upgrade with the Intel Matrix Storage Manager.

 

[ildondeigiocchi]

According to instructions you should only change the start value to zero.

I have been running my AHCI activated version of win7-64 without any problems after the Intel firmware upgrade with the Intel Matrix Storage Manager.

Thanks for the help. I was able to enable AHCI in Win7. System is even faster now. Worked like a charm. Only thing is that my BD drive situated in the top superdrive slot is picked up as drive F or secondary. How can I set it to be my primary one?

 

[gsxrq]

hi,
can one of you help i have got ahci working after a lot of mistakes but now
have 2 legacy icons in refit so i believe i have created mbr files on the wrong drives is there a way to see them and delete them or a shell command to let me see them .. help please to just tidy up ad have a finished job

also i put sata dvd readers in but the 2006 wont boot from them bit of a shame wanted to be completely sata

thanks

 

[GMink]

So besides the boot drive for windows do you have to modify the MBR for ALL windows drives that you want to be recognized in windows?

For example I'm setting up windows OS on a SSD drive with my windows data on a WD 1T drive. Do I modify the MBR for both of these drives or just the boot drive?

George

 

[gsxrq]

nobody help me delete the 2 mbr's on wrong drive ?

 

[GMink]

nobody help me delete the 2 mbr's on wrong drive ?

This may be what your looking for? this is taken from the first post of this thread.

"I went back to the thread at Insanelymac and Johnsock had left instruction how to recover the backup MBR. It is stored in USERS/Yourname/backup.mbr

Johnsock advised to run in terminal:

sudo fdisk -y -u -f ./path/to/backup.mbr /dev/rdisk0

But that command is designed for drives with one partition I guess. So I modified my command to:

sudo fdisk -y -u -f /Users/gugucom/backup.mbr /dev/rdisk0

That command worked for me."

 

[08380728]

Hrm, this thread is a source of some confusion. It seems to cover too broad a field yet not focusing on specific details for some systems. This thread seems to be geared more toward Windows XP than Win7.

I'm interested only in the installation of Windows 7 64 bit onto a single non raid drive (no other drives with any other OS installed) on a 2009 Nehalem Mac Pro. I was under the impression that the Intel AHCI driver was not required upon install since it is integrated into the Windows 7 Installer. If it is not, wouldn't it be possible to just slipstream the latest Intel AHCI driver into a Win7 image and install from that?

I'm pretty sure i've installed Win7 directly on an Intel board that had AHCI enabled in the BIOS, the difference here is that it didn't have a 64bit EFI. So are we saying the EFI in a Mac is fixed to IDE mode not AHCI? anyway is this correct? - This is why I don't understand the reason for manipulating the boot mechanism of the Mac Pro, cos Im certain the EFI doesn't default to IDE mode like a PC BIOS.

Some clarification would be great.

 

[Infrared]

I'm pretty sure i've installed Win7 directly on an Intel board that had AHCI enabled in the BIOS, the difference here is that it didn't have a 64bit EFI. So are we saying the EFI in a Mac is fixed to IDE mode not AHCI? anyway is this correct? - This is why I don't understand the reason for manipulating the boot mechanism of the Mac Pro, cos Im certain the EFI doesn't default to IDE mode like a PC BIOS.

It does when booting Windows. The MBR mod is a substitute for enabling
ACHI mode within a traditional BIOS menu.

So besides the boot drive for windows do you have to modify the MBR for ALL windows drives that you want to be recognized in windows?

For example I'm setting up windows OS on a SSD drive with my windows data on a WD 1T drive. Do I modify the MBR for both of these drives or just the boot drive?

Just the boot drive.

 

[Amdahl]

Worked on late 2006 MBP. Only replace the SATA controller driver, not the Ultra ATA controller driver. The replacement is an ICH7-M/MDH SATA AHCI controller.

I only downloaded the small floppy driver set, and then pointed Windows XP to that directory (after unzipping) and forced it to use that driver. Then did the OS X MBR modification script. Done!

Also still works in Fusion Boot Camp, although the driver reverts back to plain IDE. Still AHCI in full boot Boot Camp afterwards. Hope VMWare Fusion supports AHCI soon, although they probably think you should just do a separate SCSI install if you really care about AHCI.

 

[wirelessness]

Does anyone know if this process would be valid for setting up Windows w/ AHCI support on the latest iMac 27?

 

[Amdahl]

As long as the iMac has an Intel ICH-type controller, it should be the same. Look in System Profiler under Serial-ATA.

 

[msg6]

Help getting AHCI on 2010 MBP

I have a 15" MBP 2010 with Core i7 and I first tried the 1.0 script and now understand why it didn't work. I did a repair of my Windows 7 install because I didn't know that I could use the restore of the MBR. I am now trying to use the APP or version 1.1 of the script and each time I try it says that my MBR has already been modified. I tried restoring my backup.mbr from version 1.0 of the script and it failed and had to run a repair on my windows 7 install to get my MBR back. Do you have any advice for me to get this process to work?

 

[thermodynamic]

I have a 15" MBP 2010 with Core i7 and I first tried the 1.0 script and now understand why it didn't work. I did a repair of my Windows 7 install because I didn't know that I could use the restore of the MBR. I am now trying to use the APP or version 1.1 of the script and each time I try it says that my MBR has already been modified. I tried restoring my backup.mbr from version 1.0 of the script and it failed and had to run a repair on my windows 7 install to get my MBR back. Do you have any advice for me to get this process to work?

Seconded. I'm about to do an image backup of my Win7 Pro (64-bit) drive (Intel X25-M, 80GB) that I spent the day installing (mid-2009 MacBook Pro, 17") and am keen to enable AHCI working, but I have the feeling I'll run into the same problem. The SSD drive runs fast already, but if the faster performance is there then I want it. I did buy a high-end machine...

 

[thermodynamic]

I have a 15" MBP 2010 with Core i7 and I first tried the 1.0 script and now understand why it didn't work. I did a repair of my Windows 7 install because I didn't know that I could use the restore of the MBR. I am now trying to use the APP or version 1.1 of the script and each time I try it says that my MBR has already been modified. I tried restoring my backup.mbr from version 1.0 of the script and it failed and had to run a repair on my windows 7 install to get my MBR back. Do you have any advice for me to get this process to work?

Update: The AHCI driver may be the culprit.

The mid-2009 MBPs use an nVidia MCP79 controller -- if that's also the case for the 2010 model, finding drivers for it might be the solution. (the OP references installing Intel's AHCI controller driver...)

Still, for the price we've paid, it'd be much appreciated if Apple enabled AHCI natively for bootcamp.

 

[gugucom]

I am writing this from an uMBP which is dual boot with Vista and SL. I have AHCI activated by the same script for the single boot drive that has several partitions. I have used the Microsoft AHCI driver because I could never find a dedicated driver from Nvidia. The Microsoft driver should really work for all Macs. The AHCI driver installation cannot be done in automatic driver search mode. You have to tell Windows to look in the IDE ATA controller category for the AHCI driver. To find the MS AHCI 1.0 driver in Vista and Seven go to the manufacturer selection and look for Standard. You will have to scroll down to find it.

 

[gugucom]

Thanks for the help. I was able to enable AHCI in Win7. System is even faster now. Worked like a charm. Only thing is that my BD drive situated in the top superdrive slot is picked up as drive F or secondary. How can I set it to be my primary one?

I'm afraid I can't help you there.

 

[Genghis Khan]

Hi,

I've read through the tutorial several times and followed to the letter, but I seem to be missing a few things. (btw, running 3,1 Mac Pro with Win 7 64-bit)

Firstly, when I try to navigate in the Windows device manager to find an AHCI file, it just gives me a window with a set of tabs such as Desktop, My Computer, My Documents e.t.c. . No hint as to where the MS AHCI driver is. Then when I navigate it to the Intel matrix file, the following window says it has the best driver already. Anyway, it seemed to have kept record of that file location, so i rebooted into OS X...

Here, I opened Terminal typed "sudo " (incl blank), and then dragged the unzipped shell file from the desktop into the terminal window. The file location name appeared in the terminal window, but nothing happened. Pressing 'enter' just brings up more dialogue saying to type that file name for command line options and that the script must be run as root.


Hopefully, someone knows what I've missed.

- Michael

 

[karsten]

Thanks for the help. I was able to enable AHCI in Win7. System is even faster now. Worked like a charm. Only thing is that my BD drive situated in the top superdrive slot is picked up as drive F or secondary. How can I set it to be my primary one?

going to right click my computer, manage, drive management, right click on drive, change drive letter should work?

 

[golgo1313]

mixed results...

hi,
before i begin, thanks for the tutorial. i can't imagine how much time this must have taken.

now, have a mac pro 3.1 and purchased a pioneer blu-ray drive. got it all installed fine. followed the instructions for win7 bootcamp to recgonize the drive. i've got a hard drive dedicated to bootcamp. the first time i tried, i got the BSD. reset. second time i got it to work.

BUT, now i cannot start into windows natively. when i reboot with option held down, i get the option to start in windows, but once i select it, i get a blank screen with a blinking dash. i waited for about 10 minutes to see if it could find a drive and start win7, but to no avail. fusion works fine.

another irritating issue is that once i mount the drive in fusion and unmount, it will not mount in os x unless i reboot. i'm having sleep issues as well... i've turned off "put disks to sleep", but once my screen saver comes on, the drive unmounts and cannot be opened (though it can be seen by the eject button and the system profiler, but not disk util).

anyone having similar issues? any help in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. i'm irritated enough to almost erase the disk and start boot camp from scratch!

thanks!
g13

 

[golgo1313]

another quick question

hi,
another quick question. should the disk number, e.g. /dev/disk2 be the same AFTER the ahci sata driver install? my windows hd seems to jump around in terms of the disk number everytime i restart the machine...
thanks,
jun