Problem loading Win 7 on a SATA 3 drive in AHCI mode

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I recently bought an ASROCK Z77M motherboard, Intel Core I5 processor 4 gig DDR3 RAM and a SATA 3 HDD. I wanted to install Win XP (dont ask) but without a floppy the SATA 3 drivers cant be preinstalled. I tried slipstreaming and everything I could find on the net…. all no go. Gave up at last and bought Win 7 Home Premium, set the drive mode to AHCI but win 7 couldnt find it and wouldnt install. In IDE mode it all works but I find problems with drive fragmentation using a SATA 3 drive in IDE mode. Has anyone seen this before and knows of a FIX? Ive tried Bart PE and registry hacks, you name it. Any suggestions appreciated. Ross2866:

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Try setting the mode to AHCI and then boot directly into Safe Mode. Windows should install the AHCI drivers as part of the Safe Mode boot. Then boot into Windows 7 normally and you should be good to go. There are also registry hacks to install AHCI but this method is simpler.

Jerry

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Jerry, I followed your instructions and a whole bunch of drivers appeared to load up when I rebooted back into Win 7. I had to change back to IDE to be able to reboot at all. Once I saw the drivers had loaded, I reset to AHCI mode and rebooted again. It still would not boot up, just wanted to do a Repair Windows. Is there a way I can check the drivers are operating and installed??? It looked like it was going to work but didnt. Thanks Ross

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Hi Ross, you should enable the AHCI driver in Windows before rebooting to change the BIOS to AHCI: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

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I eventually got it to work using similar advice from this site http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=6721.0
Do you have any thoughts on why I was experiencing severe disk fragmentation capturing video in IDE mode before?
Many thanks for your input
Ross

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Do you know it works better in AHCI mode? I can’t think of any reasons except procedural; issues with the drive (buffer settings via write acceleration, other simultaneous I/O operations, full-ish and fragmented, etc.). I usually capture like 80 or 100 gigs an hour while gaming to an IDE mode drive, seemingly without issue but I’ve never spot-checked fragmentation. Are you using a third party deframenter that’s giving you this information or are you using the W7 defragmenter on a schedule? I’m letting the built in one handle it so I’ll have to record another session and check right away to see if anything is odd.

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I originally got the fragmentation problem with XP. It was so bad that the system crashed when I tried to access the folder containing the captured video files. I tried a defrag just on spec and it was shocking. I never was able to access those files in windows explorer. When I loaded win 7 in IDE mode, I did another capture to an otherwise empty (bar the operating system) SAta 3 drive and still experienced some fragmentation but not as bad. Now that I have AHCI mode working, I will have to try another capture and see if it has solved the problem. Makes you wonder if it was worth “upgrading” to a SATA 3 drive??? I capture the video with Adobe Premiere Elements.

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