How to Enable AHCI in Windows 8 and Windows 10 after Installation
AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) makes NCQ (Native Command Queuing) along with hot-plugging or hot swapping through SATA Serial-ATA host controllers possible
Usually today's motherboards will have AHCI enabled in UEFI or BIOS by default. Some older motherboards may have IDE enabled by default instead.
If you wanted to install Windows using AHCI instead of IDE, then you would normally need to have AHCI enabled in BIOS/UEFI first.
This tutorial will show you how to enable AHCI in Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10 after you have already installed the OS (operating system) with IDE by mistake.
You must be signed in as an administrator to be able to enable AHCI after installing Windows.
This tutorial is an updated version for Windows 8/8.1/10 from the Windows 7 version our dear late member Ted (aka: Bare Foot Kid) created at our sister site www.SevenForums.com below.
It is recommended to create a restore point before doing this tutorial. This way if you make a mistake, you will be able to easily undo it by doing a system restore with the restore point.
Here's How:
1. While in Windows, press the Win+R keys to open Run, type regedit, and click/tap on OK to open Registry Editor.
2. If prompted by UAC, click/tap on Yes.
3. In the left pane of Registry Editor, browse to the key location below. (see screenshot below)
10. In the right pane of the storahci key, double click/tap on the Start DWORD to modify it. (see screenshot above)
11. Type 0 (zero) for AHCI, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)
12. In the left pane of Registry Editor, browse to the key location below to see if you have the StartOverride here. If you don't, then go to step 15 below. (see screenshot below)
17. In your BIOS or UEFI firmware settings, enable AHCI, and save & exit to apply and restart the computer. (see screenshot below)
These settings will vary per brand and model number of motherboard. Please read your motherboard manual for more specific details about how to change SATA settings for it.
18. When Windows starts, it'll automatically install AHCI drivers. (see screenshot below)
19. When finished, you'll need to click/tap on Restart Now to restart the computer one last time.
I would like to go from IDE to AHCI using your instructions above.
As you can see from the attached photo of my BIOS, there's a "SATA Mode Selection" setting and a "Marvell SATA3 Operation Mode" setting. My SSD (on SATA3_1) has the OS installed on it. My two other hard drives are on the Marvell connections.
My mobo is an Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3.
After following your instructions above, should I set BOTH the "SATA Mode Selection" setting and the "Marvell SATA3 Operation Mode" to AHCI or just the "SATA Mode Selection" setting ?
Thanks
Last edited by Brink; 15 Oct 2015 at 11:26.
Reason: attached your uploaded image
Computer Type: PC/Desktop OS: Windows 10 CPU: i7-2600K Motherboard: Asrock Extreme4 Gen3 Memory: 8GB Graphics Card: 2 x AMD Radeon HD6900 Hard Drives: Transcend TS256GSSD370S
Western Digital Black WD1001FALS 1TB
Western Digital 320 GB
Computer Type: PC/Desktop OS: Windows 10 CPU: i7-2600K Motherboard: Asrock Extreme4 Gen3 Memory: 8GB Graphics Card: 2 x AMD Radeon HD6900 Hard Drives: Transcend TS256GSSD370S
Western Digital Black WD1001FALS 1TB
Western Digital 320 GB
Computer Type: PC/Desktop OS: Windows 10 CPU: i7-2600K Motherboard: Asrock Extreme4 Gen3 Memory: 8GB Graphics Card: 2 x AMD Radeon HD6900 Hard Drives: Transcend TS256GSSD370S
Western Digital Black WD1001FALS 1TB
Western Digital 320 GB
Computer Type: PC/Desktop OS: Windows 10 CPU: i7-2600K Motherboard: Asrock Extreme4 Gen3 Memory: 8GB Graphics Card: 2 x AMD Radeon HD6900 Hard Drives: Transcend TS256GSSD370S
Western Digital Black WD1001FALS 1TB
Western Digital 320 GB
Today I visited a customer on Win 10 x64 who's SSD was in IDE mode which I changed to AHCI by changing the StartOverride keys from 3 to 0 in the registry.
All good. My question is I also see forums suggesting a safemode then nornal boot will also work after changing to AHCI. Does anyone experience with this ? Does anyone know if and which registry entries the safemode method changes ?
If the safemode method works then it has to be better than a registry edit ?
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This tutorial is an updated version for Windows 8/8.1/10 from the Windows 7 version our dear late member Ted (aka: Bare Foot Kid) created at our sister site www.SevenForums.com below.
It is recommended to create a restore point before doing this tutorial. This way if you make a mistake, you will be able to easily undo it by doing a system restore with the restore point.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorV
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