HDD/SSD and AHCI/IDE problems

[Chris]

As I said in my previous post, I installed a OCZ Vertex2 SSD 50GB onto my system (spec in sig), There are 2 sata controllers on the motherboard, ICH SATA controller, and Onboard SATA controller(Gigabyte). Initially, I have a WD Caviar Black 640GB and this new SSD plug into the ICH controller, and set them as AHCI in bios. I installed Linux Debian 6.0 onto it. The WD Black has dual boot win7/linux debian. After these installs, it booted fast to the SSD debian 6.0 for the last 2 days. Today, I decided to go into Windows 7 and run a game I have there. Well, it would not boot into windows. I tried repair and everything, no dice. Then went to BIOS and set both controllers to IDE, and windows7 can boot. Then I set ICH controller to IDE (for WD black where windows 7 resides), and set Gigabyte controller to AHCI and connect SSD to it. Things work out as well. Then I found out that Windows 7 is somehow corrupted. It turned from a legal copy to unregistered illegal copy. Tried to activate it, but no dice. I had to reinstall win7 (ouch!). Reinstall the linux grub for multi-boot.

Sorry for the long story. My question is why my WD Caviar Black cannot work in AHCI for WIN7?

[Chris]

I found the solution. I must turn on the AHCI driver which was turned off in Windows 7. I also read discussions of the merit of AHCI vs IDE for HDD, and there does not seem to improve the speed (at least for my WD black).

Here is the link to MS how to turn on AHCI:
Error message when you start a Windows 7 or Windows Vista-based computer after you change the SATA mode of the boot drive: "STOP 0x0000007B INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE"
Scroll down to "let me fix it myself" to change the registers.

[JD]

Glad you figured it out!

And yes, AHCI doesn't have much benefit for HDDs, it mainly only benefits your SSD. Also make sure you install the Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers/software. Use 9.6.0.1014 if you aren't running Sandybridge as that's all OCZ suggests.

[enaberif]

AHCI benefits HDDs if you use hot swap ;)