JKHigg

Oct 05, 2015 1 Minute Read

James Higgins

JKHiggIT Manager at Daystar Television25 years in ITCISSP, MCSE

Main Areas of Contribution:

There are SATA options in the BIOS for the type of disk drive installed. If the drive is a SSD, then the SATA option to choose is ACHI. (The default option is normally IDE.)
Changing to AHCI after installing a Windows OS onto a SSD will results in a non-bootable system. (Or the system will boot and not work.)

8 Steps total

Step 1: In Windows 8.1, open a Command Prompt with Administrator rights

Keyboard: Press the windows key
Type in: cmd
Keyboard, press: CTRL-SHIFT-ENTER
If prompted, click on “Yes.”

Step 2: In the cmd prompt, type in:

bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal

Step 3: Reboot and then enter the BIOS

Normally enter the BIOS when booting up by pressing F2, F1, F10 or Delete.

Step 4: Change the SATA drive setting to AHCI and exit the BIOS while choosing to save the settings.

Windows will boot into Safe Mode.

Step 5: Verify Windows is in Safe Mode.

Step 6: While in safe more, open a Command Prompt with Administrator rights.

Keyboard: Press the windows key
Type in: cmd
Keyboard, press: CTRL-SHIFT-ENTER
If prompted, click on “Yes.”

Step 7: In the cmd prompt, type in:

bcdedit /deletevalue {current} safeboot

Step 8: Reboot the computer.

After following these steps, a Windows OS installed on a SSD will successfully boot after enabling AHCI in the bios.

3 Comments

Mace

Rockn Oct 5, 2015 at 04:27pm

What about the registry entry for msahci prior to rebooting and changing the setting in the BIOS? Is that a thing of the past with Windows 10?
Datil

JKHigg Oct 5, 2015 at 06:21pm

There are no registry settings to change using this method. Note that enabling AHCI in the BIOS is made after running "bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal," so as the 'safeboot minimal' occurs, the needed registry changes get made. So far, the method above always works.

As far as the regedit method, I've not always had success editing the registry with one of the options below. Usually one of the options works (normally option #1 or #3), but why take the time when the ‘safeboot minimal’ works without having to take a chance which option is correct?

Option #1: Pre-BIOS enabling of AHCI, run the single line below
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci /v Start /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Option #2: Pre-BIOS enabling of AHCI, run the single line below
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\IastorV /v Start /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Option #3: Pre-BIOS enabling of AHCI, run the three lines below
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci /v Start /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci /v ErrorControl /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci\StartOverride /v 0 /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
Habanero

Brendan Pitstop NZ Oct 5, 2015 at 07:42pm

doesn't work for windows 7 though, although haven't looked at registry settings.
still get the BSOD because it mustn't change the HDD controller to a more useful one.