Convert Secondary Harddrive to AHCI from IDE

Sorry if I'm covering ground that's already been discussed, but I'm struggling to find an answer to my specific problem.

I've recently (finally) managed to coerce my computer into upgrading to Windows 10 and took the opportunity to convert/run my SSD in AHCI mode.

However, my two additional hard-disks were set up in IDE mode during my previous 7 installation (both are SATA II) and if I leave them connected during boot, I get a WinLoad.exe error. Neither have an OS installed on them, nor remnants of one, and are just used for file storage.

Is there a method for me to 'convert' these hard-disks to AHCI mode? All of the reading I have found so far has concerned the primary hard-disk/SSD as opposed to additional drives. Just looking for clarity really!

Thank you all in advance,

Jack

My issue is ever more confusing as simply putting the computer on sleep seems to get around this issue. I would appreciate any more input from you all re 'converting'

Jack_Luke

Posted 2016-06-09T09:49:08.640

Reputation: 1

I have never heard of mixing IDE and AHCI.....most firmwares wouldn't let you do that since you either select IDE, AHCI, or RAID in a single option within the interface. – Ramhound – 2016-06-09T17:00:00.210

The installation was done with the BIOS set in AHCI mode and both of the additional hard-drives (which were used on my previous install in IDE mode) were unplugged during this process.

Windows has no problems 'seeing' the IDE formatted drives if I attach them after boot though. Very strange.

Perhaps my solution will just be to carry on as I have been! I hope not as popping open my case is a faff. – Jack_Luke – 2016-06-09T18:08:14.393

Please check your BIOS boot order with all drives connected. – Daniel B – 2016-06-19T18:02:00.287

Answers

Try activating the IDE drivers in the boot stage.

Have a look at the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services. There ought be a key named IDE.SYS (or something similar), and each key has a value named "Start". Start can take values from 0 to 4. If you want the driver loaded at the boot stage, you need to set "Start" to 0. If you don’t need it at boot stage, leave it at 2 or 3. (4 disables it).

The value of 1 would load it at boot stage, but since we’re talking about storage drivers, that is not possible, because the storage drivers are needed to access the storage, so they must be loaded with stage 0, i.e. by using the BIOS disk access routines.

After this, the IDE driver will be available already at boot stage, so Windows should not complain anymore.

The other way around also works, i.e. if you installed your Windows on IDE and want to convert to AHCI, activating MSAHCI.SYS will also do the trick.

Ro-ee

Posted 2016-06-09T09:49:08.640

Reputation: 1 212

At a glance - It only matters for bootable drive.

So don't worry, Install your newest SSD or HDD using AHCI mode and just plug in your oldest drive - it will work perfectly without any flaws.

In case if you wanna boot old system (windows or linux) from old drive - change mode to IDE in bios.

And, maybe we should generalize it not only for Windows 10, but from Windows 7 (XP has deprecated support of AHCI and TRIM, for example)

To prove my words I've googled a bit and found an perfect answer: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2668430/ahci-ide-mix.html

BTW, it is not the first install that I perform like thread starter asked. There are at least 4 machines working from 2007 to right now 2016 and them operating brilliant using so called 'Mixed' modes AHCI/IDE.

Ruslan Makrenko

Posted 2016-06-09T09:49:08.640

Reputation: 101

1Welcome to Super User! External links can break or be unavailable. Please include the essential information within your answer and use the link for attribution and further reading. Thanks. – fixer1234 – 2016-12-29T04:40:02.680