Windows 10: Enable AHCI in Windows 8 and Windows 10 after Installation

How to: Enable AHCI in Windows 8 and Windows 10 after Installation

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.

*note 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.

AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista

*Warning It is recommended to 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)
*Arrow HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorV




4. In the right pane of the iaStorV key, double click/tap on the Start DWORD to modify it. (see screenshot above)

5. Type 0 (zero) for AHCI, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)



6. In the left pane of Registry Editor, browse to the key location below. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorAVC\StartOverride




7. In the right pane of the StartOverride key, double click/tap on the 0 DWORD to modify it. (see screenshot above)

8. Type 0 (zero), and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)

*note This value will return back to 3 after you restart the computer later.



9. In the left pane of Registry Editor, browse to the key location below. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci




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)
*Arrow HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci\StartOverride




13. If you do, then, in the right pane of the StartOverride key, double click/tap on the 0 DWORD to modify it. (see screenshot above)

14. Type 0 (zero), and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)



15. When finished, close Registry Editor.

16. Boot the computer to your BIOS or UEFI firmware settings.

• How to Boot to UEFI Firmware Settings from inside Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Boot to UEFI Firmware Settings from inside Windows 10

17. In your BIOS or UEFI firmware settings, enable AHCI, and save & exit to apply and restart the computer. (see screenshot below)

*note 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.




That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Enable AHCI in Vista and Windows 7 after Installation
• How to Enable HIPM and DIPM for your SSD and HDD in Windows
• How to Add 'AHCI Link Power Management - HIPM/DIPM' to Power Options in Windows

:)

 

AHCI Windows 10 Driver for ASUS X551M w/ toshiba SSD

Try to install Windows 10 in IDE mode. Then change mode to AHCI in Windows, reboot, change IDE to AHCI in bios, drivers should install automatically.

Maybe these will help: Enabling AHCI mode AFTER Windows 10 installation

 

windows 10 stops after a week or so

I'm replying to my own post to share what I think is the fix which fixed my issue with Windows 10 stopping after a week. It may very well be the SSD drive and that W10 did not recognize the SATA AHCI Controller in Device Manager. After running this simple
fix all seems to be well.

Windows 8.1 – Enabling AHCI after installing Windows

 

Hello Rob, *Smile

I'd set both to AHCI, but the Marvel option wouldn't matter unless you had a SATA drive connected to one of it's separate ports.

 

Thanks brink. However, I think I have the two hdds connected to the Marvell ports, don't I?

 

I'd set it to AHCI to be safe.

 

ok, so this is weird ...

both the START dwords for those registry entries were already set to 0.
(remember that I have SATA mode set as IDE in BIOS!)

So then I went to the BIOS and changed SATA modes to AHCI and rebooted and got the INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE BSOD.

Went back to BIOS and changed back to IDE and all is ok again.

So Windows thinks I'm in AHCI? But BIOS says IDE.

I'm totally confused *Confused

 

I ended up using these instructions:
Solved Attn. SSD owners - Enabling AHCI mode AFTER Windows 10 installation. - Windows 10 Forums

and now I'm in AHCI .

In your tutorial above I think you should mention the startoverride subkeys. They need to have 0 dwords too.

 

Thank you Rob. The tutorial has been updated for this. *Smile

 

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 ?

 

Hello colsearle, *Smile

Sure you could do this in safe mode or normal mode. It doesn't matter.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...dows-10-a.html

 

Hi Brink

Thanks for getting back to me I did try to send you a private message but not enough posts yet.

The guide I'm referring to makes no registry changes.
Solved Attn. SSD owners - Enabling AHCI mode AFTER Windows 10 installation. - Windows 10 Forums

 

I haven't tried that way, but it should work.

 

I wonder if doing this will help getting my external eSATA drive re-detected by the SMART monitoring process? After updating my drivers Disk Management and Belarc Advisor both say SMART is fine, but Diskeeper 15 and Western Digital Lifeguard says SMART not available for that drive, weird I know.
BTW is this basically the same as in W7?

 

Hey Peter, *Smile

This has changed a little bit from the Windows 7 method.

Using AHCI would be better than IDE if all hard drives are connected via SATA and not IDE.