How to install an AHCI SATA driver in Windows XP, Vista and Win7

[ironhand41]

I'm going go give this a try

I'm getting everything set up to install the ahci driver on Win 7 on my MP 3,1. I've ordered two Intel 120 gig ssds. But I know nothing about the Mac OS. So I downloaded ahci-1.sh.zip to the Mac drive. I think I unzipped it but I'm not sure. Does ahci-1.sh.zip become ahci-1.sh when it is unzipped? (Note: I've zipped and unzipped hundreds of files but always in DOS, OS/2 or Windows).

 

[ironhand41]

loading ahci drivers in win 7 on mac pro

I follow the directions as gugucom explains, but ran into a snag with the terminal script "ahci-1.sh." I open a terminal window, type "sudo" followed by a space (is that the same as a "blank" in macintese?) and then drag ahci-1.sh into the terminal window and nothing happens except the path to ahci-1 is now printed following the "blank." After two hours of surfing the web trying to find out how to make a script file "execute" I give up. I've written many batch files in DOS but this one escapes me. I'll pay someone at a non-Apple Mac store to do this for me and post what I find out back here. Cheers.

 

[ironhand41]

Ok, works now!

I have a feeling that I'm talking to myself on this thread. Anyway, after a day and a half, I finally got the ahci driver installed on my Mac Pro 3,1 following the directions provided by gugucom and Ludachris. Running the script to modify the MBR was what slowed me down - it kept telling me it couldn't read the MBR. The problem turned out to be identifying the correct drive on which to make the modification. I have one drive (listed as disk0) with two partitions. Partition 1 (listed as disk0s2) has OS X and partition 2 (listed as disk0s3) contains Win 7. With gugucom's cautions about patching the wrong disk in mind, I kept trying to patch disk0s3, the partition with Win 7. But I received a "unable to read MBR" error message each time I tried. Finally, after re-reading all the documentation several times it occurred to me that I should be applying the patch to disk0. I executed the ahci-1.sh script using drive0 (the default value which in my case was correct) and the MBR was successfully patched. Thanks to gugucom, Ludachris, and every one else who helped put this fix in place (and thanks to MacRumors). Over and out.

 

[rtrt]

a

 

[pesos]

Ugh. been wrangling with this on my new 17" 2011 mbp. finally got the newer i5 script and ran it, but i get a bsod. now i can't even get my windows side to boot at all. going to have to scrap and reinstall i guess.

absolutely shameful that in 2011 apple is still disabling ahci in the bios emulation (not to mention not using uefi).

 

[elvisizer]

Ugh. been wrangling with this on my new 17" 2011 mbp. finally got the newer i5 script and ran it, but i get a bsod. now i can't even get my windows side to boot at all. going to have to scrap and reinstall i guess.

absolutely shameful that in 2011 apple is still disabling ahci in the bios emulation (not to mention not using uefi).

are you sure your windows drivers just aren't out of sync with your AHCI emulation state? if you've set the BIOS to AHCI but haven't successfully set windows to expect AHCI, you will BSOD. run the script again to set the BIOS back to normal- if windows boot successfully then, you'll know that was the case. it'll take you about 5 minutes to check that, if it still BSOD's, then you may as well reinstall.
in fact, when i'm setting AHCI up on a new windows install, I always reboot once looking for a BSOD after I set windows to AHCI, just to make sure it actually is. then i run the script under OS X.

 

[pesos]

are you sure your windows drivers just aren't out of sync with your AHCI emulation state? if you've set the BIOS to AHCI but haven't successfully set windows to expect AHCI, you will BSOD. run the script again to set the BIOS back to normal- if windows boot successfully then, you'll know that was the case. it'll take you about 5 minutes to check that, if it still BSOD's, then you may as well reinstall.
in fact, when i'm setting AHCI up on a new windows install, I always reboot once looking for a BSOD after I set windows to AHCI, just to make sure it actually is. then i run the script under OS X.

I tried to fix it - nothing I did made any difference - it was hosed. And yes, I had rebooted multiple times after changing the registry to allow msahci to start. I wonder if the new chipset needs further tweaking even from the current i5 script...

 

[pesos]

anyone heard any more about ahci on 2001 mbp?

 

[tosehee]

Anyone tried this on MBP 2011?

 

[Ludacrisvp]

Head over to the boot camp section on insanely Mac where I made the original topic and you will find out that Euclid1 has figured out support for the 2011 MBP.

 

[PresumingEd]

Hi guys, I'm helping a friend out with a mid-2008 MacPro and I've successfully enabled AHCI in Windows and loaded the Intel AHCI drivers however I still cannot see the SATA BluRay drive in Windows. The drive is fully functional in OSX but Windows refuses to acknowledge its existence. The Intel RST control panel sees all 6 SATA ports, detects the 4 hard drives but show the last 2 ports as unused. Its quite baffling, anyone have any ideas?

 

[Toumak]

Hi all !

I did a clean new install of 7 today.
And as previously, I want to activate AHCI on it.
I did it a few months ago but hadn't had to modify the MBR to get it working ( I hadn't seen you thread at this time)...
Just the registry modification, restarting windows did install the ms driver, and then I installed intel driver : and everything worked great !
I jumped from 6.9 to 7.6 in the Experience index !

But today, can't even install ms driver !!
I did the modification in the registry, but I never installed the ms driver at next boot !

Any idea ?

 

[pesos]

anyone have the latest version of the patchcode they can send me, want to try this on my 2001 mbp. the rapidshare link from insanely seems to be broken, ugh.

 

[vanden]

thanks !!!

I tested on a Mac Pro 2008/Win7 64, this works very well !

But I can not use the last "Intel Rapid Storage Technology (10.6.0.1022)".
10.1.0.1008 works well.

This is strange because 10.6 is normaly compatible with ESB2 ahci controler (Intel® 631xESB/632xESB I/O controller hub) !!??
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?lang=eng&changeLang=true&DwnldId=20215

Comment, on this page they say it's also compatible with the ICH8 ... This is not the case ...

EDIT :
the last version where PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2681&CC_0106.DeviceDesc = "Intel(R) ESB2 SATA AHCI Controller" is present is 10.5.0.1015

 

[^roman$]

Hi,

just registered here after reading this thread yesterday.
I am now glad to have a Samsung 470 SSD (256 GB) using a MacbookPro 6,2 (2010, i5@2,4GHz, 15'', Intel controller).
Mac OS X works very well. Now, like you, I've to / would like to enable AHCI in order to get the full speed of my SDD under Windows 7 x64 Ultimate which is currently extremely limited to say the least.

Here a short description what occurred: Read the introduction, downloaded the script, prepared Windows, patched the MBR successfully. While booting Windows with the M$ AHCI driver, the system ends up with a blue screen. Though I am still able to boot Windows with Vmware Fusion, so I could probably repair it.

What shall I do?!?

 

[^roman$]

I've now managed to boot Windows7 with AHCI enabled and to get rid that pesky BSOD. Reason was: I must have used the wrong MBR patch.
I did another search and found another script on another site created for MBP6,2 especially. And it worked.
Then I faced just another BSOD shortly before entering the Desktop. This time it was caused by the Vmware tools installed on Windows, perhaps due to the fact that they expect an IDE environment. After uninstalling them, Windows worked almost perfectly. I get actually read/write values given by Samsung (writing is even slightly higher!) using the latest Intel driver. Awesome.

 

[punkmofo]

So, if I understand this right, this should allow me to install an SSD in the Optical Drive Bay on a Mac Pro 3,1. As the OP suggested, I completely removed the Optical Drive while doing these updates.

I got everything working correctly and the Intel Driver 8.9 installed, with the SSD in the first HDD bay, but when I move it over to the Optical Bay I get no bootable disk... what am I missing? I feel like I'm so close...

 

[mh175]

Got it working. Strange driver behavior?

Thank you for this. On the first try I was able to get both my Early 2009 and Mid 2010 Mac Pros using AHCI in Windows 7 on Bootcamp. The speed benefit is huge. And P.S. I haven't had a problem with Windows recognizing a SSD in the top optical bay.

Check out what my drivers are listed as (on both Macs)

Intel(R) ICH10 Family 2 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 2- 3A2
Intel(R) ICH10R Sata AHCI Controller
Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial Controller
Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial Controller

Is this normal?

Some background info:

When I first chose to use Bootcamp, I made the decision to have a dedicated SSD for each operating system (rather than partition a single drive). Both SSDs are OWC Mercury Extreme 3G. So when I went to do the AHCI enable trick, I had two drives attached at the time. Is this the reason why my first driver says "ICH10 Family 2 port"?

If I try to change the Standard AHCI driver to an Intel one, the drive stops working and I have to switch back to IDE-- but oddly the driver comes back to Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller.

I really hope Apple fixes this soon.

 

[techmonkey]

Has anyone enabled AHCI on a mid-2007 MBP? I just installed a Samsung 830 SSD and didnt realize I am missing the full performance of this drive until I came across talk about AHCI in Windows. Why isnt this enabled by default?

 

[vwpieces]

I signed up just to say Thank You.
I have working SATA_ODD ports on my Win7 X64 MP2.1.
DVD-RW & Blu-Ray

 

[PowerPCMacMan]

Apple won't. Apple does not even provide support for bootcamp. Its just a way of running Windows.. to get AHCI enabled you need to patch the MBR and or the other option which is tedious is setting up a GRUB Linux boot loader which at load time will install and run the AHCI drivers just before booting into Windows.

The ODD Ports on 2006,07, and 2008 Mac Pros will only boot Mac OS X or Apple related operating systems. They will NOT boot non-Apple operating systems. This is a FIRMWARE issue and Apple will not revise it. And yes,

Intel(R) ICH10 Family 2 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 2- 3A2
Intel(R) ICH10R Sata AHCI Controller
Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial Controller
Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial Controller

This is correct. You are running AHCI drivers in Windows 7.

Thank you for this. On the first try I was able to get both my Early 2009 and Mid 2010 Mac Pros using AHCI in Windows 7 on Bootcamp. The speed benefit is huge. And P.S. I haven't had a problem with Windows recognizing a SSD in the top optical bay.

Check out what my drivers are listed as (on both Macs)

Intel(R) ICH10 Family 2 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 2- 3A2
Intel(R) ICH10R Sata AHCI Controller
Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial Controller
Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial Controller

Is this normal?

Some background info:

When I first chose to use Bootcamp, I made the decision to have a dedicated SSD for each operating system (rather than partition a single drive). Both SSDs are OWC Mercury Extreme 3G. So when I went to do the AHCI enable trick, I had two drives attached at the time. Is this the reason why my first driver says "ICH10 Family 2 port"?

If I try to change the Standard AHCI driver to an Intel one, the drive stops working and I have to switch back to IDE-- but oddly the driver comes back to Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller.

I really hope Apple fixes this soon.

----------

Just remember the ODD ports in 06,07, and 08 Mac Pros are NOT hot swappable.. which means in you would have to shut the machine down and the ports will re-initialize should you remove a device from those ports.

I am glad you got it working!

I really hope Apple fixes this soon.[/QUOTE]

Not gonna happen.. Apple is all about forcing you and me to buy new hardware each year or two. Apple isn't in the business of fixing up firmware issues 3-4 years after the fact.

I signed up just to say Thank You.
I have working SATA_ODD ports on my Win7 X64 MP2.1.
DVD-RW & Blu-Ray

 

[mh175]

I just had a major hard drive failure and needed to reinstall windows/bootcamp and go through this all again.


What's weird is that when I ran disk utility after restarting into OSX the Bootcamp drive changed to disk1s2.

I used the original number. I'm getting a warning: unrecognized OS.

Hopefully it's OK!

 

[PowerPCMacMan]

The only way for sure to tell if you are ok... watch for the APPLE and spinning pinwheel. If not, then you are sol! However, all might not be lost.. if OS X partition boots up and kernel panics then you would need to re-install whatever OS you were using before(Pick, SL, Lion, or ML).

Hopefully, as you say you are getting unrecognized OS.. lets hope its the bootcamp partition thats messed up and not your PRIMARY OS(Mac).

Really, Apple should revise the firmware for AHCI support, but they don't care anymore about Mac Pros and AHCI problems.. but on their end under OS X, AHCI works great.

I just had a major hard drive failure and needed to reinstall windows/bootcamp and go through this all again.


What's weird is that when I ran disk utility after restarting into OSX the Bootcamp drive changed to disk1s2.

I used the original number. I'm getting a warning: unrecognized OS.

Hopefully it's OK!

 

[mh175]

Well I must have patched the wrong drive. Anyway I reinstalled win 7 and started from scratch the problem is that drive bays 3 and 4 refuse to take the ahci driver. In the device manager, when I select either the default AHCI 1.0 drivers or the newer intel ones, I get an error that the device cannot start...error 10.


This is so weird because I managed to do this perfectly a year ago...

 

[bjar]

Does this work on windows 8? I can't find any info about it. I know the registry part is different though. Any help would be appreciated. I have a 2008 Mac Pro.