How can I enable AHCI on a SATA drive after installing Windows?

Question

Can I enable AHCI after installing Windows 7 in a SATA drive that was on IDE mode?

score 23 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 04 '18 at 10:47

You need to make the msahci and/or IastorV drivers be loaded early.

(Note: For Windows 10, the built-in driver is called storahci.)

According to Microsoft KB 922976, run Fix it 50470 or open regedit, navigate to one of these keys:

and set the value of the Start dword to 0.

using regedit to enable AHCI mode in Windows 7

Reboot and enable AHCI in BIOS, now it should work.

Remember to create a restore point before any changes, just in case.

The same registry changes can be done via Cmd, using reg add or sc config:

Check current parameters (and make sure the service exists):
```
sc qc msahci
```
Change the boot mode:
```
sc config msahci start= boot
```
(Note that start= is a single parameter, but boot is separate.)

It only worked when I followed your procedure. – Jader Dias Feb 20 '10 at 02:36 — Jader Dias, Feb 20 '10 at 02:36

1 Answers1