Windows 10: How to reinstall Windows 10 using AHCI mode and will it activate?

Hi everyone! I recently decided to switch to AHCI mode so I could use Ubuntu alongside Windows. However, it said that I needed to change SATA mode from RST to AHCI. So I searched up some guides on how to do it and none of them worked. This time I touched wrong configurations and Windows won't boot in any SATA mode, I'm getting an INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE error if I'm on RST and endless "Loading Automatic Repair" screen on both modes. So I decided that I need to reinstall Windows - however, I have some questions. The first one is - how to reinstall Windows using AHCI and will it work in that case? And the second one - will it activate if I haven't previously bond a product key to a Microsoft account? Thanks in advance!

:)

 

AHCI vs regular Native IDE


If you want to change IDE to AHCI in windows 10, without a clean install, do the following steps:

• Open Command Prompt (Admin)
• type: bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal
• Restart PC and go into you BIOS -> Set IDE to AHCI
• Windows 10 will start if Safe Mode
• Open Command Prompt (Admin)
• type: bcdedit /deletevalue {current} safeboot
• Restart and Windows 10 should load with AHCI enabled now

Until now, I had a 100% succes rate with this, but in the case Windows 10 wouldn't start, go back into your BIOS and set AHCI to IDE.

 

RAID vs AHCI mode

IDE = the old standard
AHCI = IDE + NCQ and hotswap support
RAID = same as AHCI, but the ability to use RAID modes.


If you change a drive in/out of RAID, it has to be formatted. So yes, you have to reinstall windows if you use RAID at a later date. You do NOT need RAID to have multiple drives.

 

Change SATA mode to AHCI from IDE

I was able to change it now (I also had some issues with NICs so I decided to reinstall my PC but I wanted to keep my files, programs, settings .... ). Here is how:

• Lunch application "setup.exe" from path "c:\$Windows.~WS\Sources\Windows\" (simply running upgrade to 10 again, but this time from windows 10)
• After first reboot, change SATA mode to AHCI and let Windows finish upgrade
• Everything should be fine now

I am now running my disks in AHCI mode now and even don't have (so far) issues I had before.