- How To Enable Ahci For Mac Windows 7
- How To Enable Ahci For Mac Pro
- How To Enable Ahci For Mac Windows 10
Summary :
You may wonder about the reasons for enabling Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) in Windows 10. In this post, MiniTool shows you the reasons and how to enable AHCI after Win 10 installation.
Quick Navigation :
Oct 05, 2011 The following will enable you to use all 6 SATA ports on the Mac Pro Early 2008. It might enable AHCI on other Mac platforms, however I have none to test with. There was mention of a MacBook Pro user enabling AHCI for faster drive access in Windows on the OnMac forum. May 13, 2016 By request, I am writing a tutorial to enable AHCI mode for iMacs which run Windows in IDE mode (via Bootcamp partitioning) I am using 21' iMac mid 2011 model. I installed Samsung 840 Evo SSD. But SSD benchmarks in Windows gave 30-40% lower than the rated performance. Jun 12, 2019 Before you start: you need to have Administrator access level to enable AHCI in Windows 10. CAUTION: follow this manual carefully to prevent being stuck in a boot loop and data loss.We have tested this manual on our own systems, and we can confirm it works. But as we told you before, the best way to enable AHCI is to do it from BIOS with clean Windows installation. Jan 24, 2011 The following will enable you to use all 6 SATA ports on the Mac Pro (original and Early 2008 for sure) It might enable AHCI on other Mac platforms, however I have none to test with. There was mention of a MacBook Pro user enabling AHCI for faster drive access in Windows on the OnMac forum.
What Is AHCI?
For many general users, AHCI is a strange term. But it is necessary to learn about this term due to the quick development of hard disk.
Short for Advanced Host Controller Interface, AHCI is an Intel technical standard that specifies the operation of SATA host bus adapters.
The top benefit of enabling AHCI mode for hard disk is that the disk can run at a higher speed than the disk adopting IDE mode. In other words, the performance of the hard disk will be greatly reduced if not using this mode.
Further reading:
AHCI and IDE are two modes. Under one of the modes, a hard drive communicates with the computer system adopting a SATA storage controller.
How To Enable Ahci For Mac Windows 7
Basically, IDE is for average computer uses and is the most compatible with other technology, especially older devices. But it lacks support for new technologies. While AHCI supports some important new features that IDE dies not, like hot-plugging hard drives, Furthermore, AHCI offers an improved performance over IDE.
The reason why the disk performance can be improved by enabling the AHCI mode is that using this mode can greatly minimize the travel of data seek (the read/write speed of a SATA hard drive can be increased by about 30%). So, you can effectively use your hard disk under multitasks after enabling AHCI.
This article explains how to measure disk performance and how to interpret the disk performance test result. It touches upon terminology like IOPS, transfer rate, sequential reading/writing, random reading/writing, and queue number.
Till now, you may be eager to know to enable AHCI. But please note that you need to set up AHCI mode in BIOS before installing Windows. But cheer up even if you have finished Windows 10 installation. There is also some chance to enable AHCI after Windows 10 installation. Let’s see how to do that.
Note: Before carrying out the following steps, it is highly suggested you create a system restore point in case that something goes wrong.
Enable AHCI After Win 10 Installation via Registry Editor
Step 1: Press Windows + R to call out the Run window. Once getting the window, please type regedit in the search zone and then hit the OK button to open Registry Editor.
Step 2: Navigate to the following path to find the folders below mand modify them one by one.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServices
1. iaStorV
In the right pane, double-click the Start DWORD to modify it. Then change the value of the DWORD to 0 and click the OK button to confirm.
2. StartOverride included in iaStorV
Expand StartOverride and then double-click the 0 DWORD. Type 0 in the Value data field and click the OK button.
3. storahci
Expand storahci and double-click the Start DWORD and set its value as 0.
4. StartOverride included in storahci
Expand StartOverride and double-click the 0 DWORD to modify its value to 0.
Step 3: Boot your PC to BIOS or UEFI firmware settings.
Step 4: Enable AHCI in BIOS or UEFI firmware settings, save and exit this change, and restart your computer. On boot, Windows 1ill automatically install AHCI drivers.
Enable AHCI After Win 10 Installation via CMD
Step 1: Type Command Prompt in the Cortana’s search box and run Command Prompt as administrator.
How to open ani files. Step 2: Type the bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal command and then hit Enter after each inputting.
Step 3: Boot your computer into BIOS and then enable AHCI mode.
Step 4: Save changes then exit BIOS. Reboot your computer.
Step 5: Enter Safe Mode and then reopen Command Prompt. Type the bcdedit /deletevalue {current} safeboot command and hit the Enter key.
Step 6: Restart your computer and Windows will automatically install AHCI drivers.
How do you make the best use of Windows 10? Here you will find the best tips and tricks for Windows 10.
My configuration:single internal hard drive in iMac with a single NTFS partition. This is BIOS identifier (hd0,1). In linux, this will be SATA device /dev/sda. The SATA controller is from ICH8M and has PCI identifier 8086:2828. Please change these references to your system configuration.
Don't worry, I still have OS X on an external FW800 drive but that's not relevant here.
First of all, I tried loading Windows 7 on my Intel Mac and then came to a few conclusions:
- BIOS mode boot has the negative side-effect that it disables AHCI mode in the SATA controller. This leads to degraded performance of hard drive access.
- EFI mode boot of Windows 7 requires EFI 2.0 which isn't included in the firmware.
- Macs don't like to boot from external devices. Windows doesn't like to be installed on external drives.
This post is all about getting the SATA controller back into AHCI mode after the compatibility layer in the intel Mac changed it. AHCI gives NCQ and might be somewhat faster so I really wanted to try that after my younger brother nagged me about it during our dayly Mac-vs-PC argues.
How To Enable Ahci For Mac Pro
I can talk about what I did wrong during those attempts but I will try to keep it short:- Start regedit and locate the following key: HKLMSystemCurrentControlSetServicesmsahci
Change the 'Start' value to '0'. This will make Windows attempt to load the AHCI driver stack when it boots. - Download a Linux live-CD with GRUB 1.98. (others might indicate 0.xx as grub and 1.xx as grub2). I decided on the latest Ubuntu live-CD. Older versions just won't do unless you want ugly patches. You want to have the setpci grub module.
- Download the 'Rapid Storage Technology' manager software (includes the driver) and the 'RST Driver Files for F6 Install' from the Intel website.
In my case the latest version for x64 Windows was iata96enu.exe and f6flpy96x64.zip
The manager software will not install yet but you have to install at least the driver by unpacking it and force a device installation:
Go to Device Manager, select Serial ATA Storage Controller, Update driver software, Browse, Pick from list, Have disk, Ignore the warning. This should be ok since the next time you'll boot Windows, the device will be different anyway. - Boot the Linux CD :-)
Hold option key when booting the Mac to see it as a boot option. Load the System until you can start a terminal. Get root access:
sudo -i - Because it booted from CD, it doesn't know much about the hard drive. Therefore create a device map file that maps (hd0) to /dev/sda.
vi /boot/grub/device.map
i(hd0)[tab]/dev/sda[esc]:wq
If you know some linux, you know what I mean. - Mount your Windows partition in Linux.
mkdir /mnt/win
ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/win - Install grub to the MBR and copy the data files too.
grub-install --no-floppy --modules=ntfs --root-directory=/mnt/win /dev/sda
This should report no error. - If you already had a Boot directory on your Windows partition (most likely), you'll now have two boot directories (-.-); Fix it by moving the contents.
mv /mnt/win/boot/grub /mnt/win/Boot
rmdir /mnt/win/boot - reboot
reboot (duh) - At the grub prompt you should now be able to try some commands.
lspci
setpci -d 8086:2828 90.b=40
lspci (should now show 2829 instead of 2828)
root (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
boot - If Windows now boots, it should be in AHCI mode and hopefully go ask for the drivers.
You can install the RST manager or just check the Device Manager to see if it's working as intended. - You can create a C:Bootgrubgrub.cfg file to automate the booting process. (Note: 'Manual editing of /boot/grub/grub.cfg is not encouraged')
set timeout=10
set default=0
menuentry 'Windows 7 with AHCI' {
setpci -d 8086:2828 90.b=40
set root=(hd0,1)
chainloader +1
} - PS: If somehow Windows booting was not working in the first place or you don't want any of this anymore, you can use the Windows 7 DVD. Some recovery commands you then can use:
bootrec /FixBoot
bootrec /RebuildBcd
bootrec /FixMbr (should erase grub again but I don't know why you would want that)