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AHCI in BIOS

Discussion in 'Storage and Networking' started by jdmba, Dec 15, 2010.

  1. jdmba Newcomer, in training

    I understand that if I wanted to get a SSD (such as the Vertex 2), I would need to enable AHCI in the BIOS.

    However, I have pullout chasses in my PC which allow me to swap in and out about 7 different hard drives that I use for various data storage. I also have one hard drive which is an XP boot and another which is a Windows 7 boot. I am currently using plain old SATA in the BIOS.

    Can anyone please explain what effect turning on AHCI would have to my system? Would I still be able to access the data disks? Would I still be able to boot off the bootable disks?

    Thanks!
    jdmba, Dec 15, 2010
    #1

  2. Tmagic650 TechSpot Ambassador

    It would be best to start the Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) with a fresh install of Windows. All 3 of my drives are SATA and configured in a 1TB striped RAID. ACHI is automatically enabled when using a RAID array. The data on all your drives may disappear when they are connected when you enable ACHI
    Tmagic650, Dec 28, 2010
    #2

  3. brucethetech Newcomer, in training

    data shouldnt disappear but windows xp will not boot with ahci set on the system volume. it will loop over and over.
    brucethetech, Dec 28, 2010
    #3

  4. Tmagic650 TechSpot Ambassador

    When I say "disappear" I mean that the drives won't be seen at all by the bios. Data is still present on the drives but the drives won't mount. In RAID you would have to clear the partitions of all drives before RAID can be set up
    Tmagic650, Dec 28, 2010
    #4