Tutorial: Enable SATA AHCI Mode in Windows 7,8,8.1 & 10

[star-affinity]

@TCHAMMER Thanks for sharing! Will give this a go at some point.

 

[star-affinity]

@TCHAMMER
Didn’t work for me – now I get a blue screen with a sad face when attempting to startup Windows 10.

I take it there's no easy way to recover from this (see attached screenshot)?

 

[crjackson2134]

didn't you make a clone image before starting this? I always make a bootable backup or a clone image of my drives before tinkering.

 

[star-affinity]

didn't you make a clone image before starting this? I always make a bootable backup or a clone image of my drives before tinkering.

I know I should have, but I didn’t have anything important that I couldn’t lose and it sounded like a relatively straightforward thing to do, so I decided to take the risk. What I will lose is the time it takes recovering, which is bad enough I guess... :-/

Should be possible to reset Windows by starting up in from the recovery environment, right? Maybe I’ll learn a thing or two from this.

Edit:

A Windows reset from the recovery environment with "save my settings" made me come back pretty quickly.

 

[Project Alice]

I just did this on my Mac Pro 5,1. It worked almost perfectly. Only problem is I am missing a drive in Windows. I have all 4 bays filled, and Windows recognizes 3 of them (that are all useless in windows as they are HFS+). The 4th drive is exFAT and is used as a go-between drive for mac and windows. It also holds the windows games; as my Windows SSD is tiny.
So every drive works except the one I actually need. Awesome.

 

[Shad0wLandsUK]

I am about to give this a shot myself on a clean install of Windows 10 1903
We shall see how it blows... I mean goes

 

[janvipatel23]

I have tried first sata ahci disable and enable method but that not work for me then I have uninstall the sata ahci controller driver and again download new ahci controller driver from official website Download Driver

 

[trondl]

How do you enable ahci for bay 3 & 4 (2 port ICH10 controller) in a 2009 MP 4,1 (flashed to 5,1)?
I run win7 with intel rst 11.7 and have tried everything I can throw at it.
Is there an alternative patchcode.bin that combines the 4 port and 2 port controller?
I've used the ACHI Enabler and bootice method, but always end up with errors when attempting to force the driver (bluescreens when forcing update driver and boot bluescreens when doing" milder" attempts).
Also boot times are really slow when ahci is on the 4 port and the 2 port runs in ide mode.

 

[sushi714]

Not sure if this is outdated now, but I came across this guide after spending 2 days trying to get install Windows 10 via BootCamp and finally, "properly" (GPT), successfully installed on my MacBook Pro Early 2011 yesterday with the sound finally working (yay!). However, when I followed this guide, it resulted in Windows 10 refusing to start up in anything other than Safe Mode??

I tried to restore MBR using the backup I created (before modifying the MBR), but this did not fix the problem, so I'm assuming that importing the reg file might've been what "broke" my Windows install.

Something I did notice were some differences from the OP's Device Manager under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers -- when I first installed Windows, I had 3 devices appear under this section: ATA Channel 0, ATA Channel 1, and Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 4 port Serial ATA Storage Controller - 1C01. However, when I checked this section after performing the process OP provided, I had only the "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller" listed.


I'm a bit hesitant to try this again, since I made the mistake of not backing up my Win 10 install when I tried this yesterday, but I finally finished reinstalling Win 10 again and made sure to make an image of my Windows partition in case this happens again. Probably will wait a day or so to see if anyone has any input before doing more research and trying again...

 

[sushi714]

Not sure if this is outdated now, but I came across this guide after spending 2 days trying to get install Windows 10 via BootCamp and finally, "properly" (GPT), successfully installed on my MacBook Pro Early 2011 yesterday with the sound finally working (yay!). However, when I followed this guide, it resulted in Windows 10 refusing to start up in anything other than Safe Mode??

I tried to restore MBR using the backup I created (before modifying the MBR), but this did not fix the problem, so I'm assuming that importing the reg file might've been what "broke" my Windows install.

Something I did notice were some differences from the OP's Device Manager under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers -- when I first installed Windows, I had 3 devices appear under this section: ATA Channel 0, ATA Channel 1, and Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 4 port Serial ATA Storage Controller - 1C01. However, when I checked this section after performing the process OP provided, I had only the "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller" listed.


I'm a bit hesitant to try this again, since I made the mistake of not backing up my Win 10 install when I tried this yesterday, but I finally finished reinstalling Win 10 again and made sure to make an image of my Windows partition in case this happens again. Probably will wait a day or so to see if anyone has any input before doing more research and trying again...

As I suspected, there was something outdated -- for me, I'm fairly certain it was the reg file, since this was the only part I changed.

I ended up manually making changes in regedit mentioned in this tutorial, then I was able to get AHCI to work.

 

[Martinet Martínez]

The download link of the ZIP file is broken... Is there any way to download the zip?

P.D. Tested a year before on a late 2009 white macbook (macbook6,1) working perfectly! Thanks🙃

 

[kazar]

Thank you . Crucial MX500 works better then before (350B\s in ide mode) in Imac 2011 21" with k2100m.
Tested on Windows 10 Home Dic 2020 H2
Reupload patched MBR + BootICE
In Dic 2020 you can: (quick summary for fresh win10 setup)
-Flash fixed mbr
-apply reg fix only in :
iastore avc override (start default is 0) to 0
iastorv override (start default is 0) to 0
storeahci override (start default is 0) to 0
-Unistall from device manager: Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 4 port Serial ATA Storage Controller - 1C00 (can leave driver without delete)
-restart

 

[Giggier]

Hello everyone and thanks for your work here! Not really a Mac user, but I had to make a beautiful Mac Pro work again. Used Boot Camp to install Windows 10 64-bit 21H2.

Very late to this party, but here's my issue. Successfully enabled AHCI on a Mac Pro 3.1 (Early 2008). Using a non-Mac Nvidia card. Everything works. The issue? I cannot enter Windows Safe Mode. W10's spinning wheel freezes and then I get a black screen.

While booting in Normal mode, the wheel also freezes for 2-3 seconds but Windows eventually starts normally. The minute I restore the MBR, uninstall the AHCI driver and restart, everything works: Safe Mode is ok and there's no freezing wheel in Normal mode either. Something in the patched MBR blocking Safe Mode?

Any suggestions welcome, thanks again.

(by the way... is there a way to have boot device selection without a Mac GPU?)

 

[Giggier]

Perhaps this Tutorial is mainly targeted at shared partitions on the same drive? Forgot to mention my Windows/Boot Camp installation is on an SSD drive on its own (the first/boot slot on the MP 3.1). El Capitan is on another, HDD drive. This is what the Windows SSD looks like:

 

[tigerintank]

Perhaps this Tutorial is mainly targeted at shared partitions on the same drive? Forgot to mention my Windows/Boot Camp installation is on an SSD drive on its own (the first/boot slot on the MP 3.1). El Capitan is on another, HDD drive. This is what the Windows SSD looks like:

View attachment 1949242

Might be better posting this on the Mac Pro forum as well - assuming cross posting is ok. I thought there was a thread over there re enabling AHCI way back. It's on my list of things to do with my MP3,1 too.

 

[n00b1488]

Sorry to revive this old post , i didn't understand this part

3. There is a reg file called AHCI.Detection.Reset (Inside AHCI Mode Enabler folder)
Double click on it and import it into Windows registry.

Is going to be saved automatically in the windows registry folder? or i have to do it manually on a specific folder?

 

[n00b1488]

As I suspected, there was something outdated -- for me, I'm fairly certain it was the reg file, since this was the only part I changed.

I ended up manually making changes in regedit mentioned in this tutorial, then I was able to get AHCI to work.

You did his steps and manually edit the regedit? but what about tue bios step ( macs don't have windows like bios to make changes )

 

[Giggier]

Is going to be saved automatically in the windows registry folder? or i have to do it manually on a specific folder?

There's no registry 'folder', just the registry. No need to manually intervene, just double-click the .reg file and it'll be imported in the registry.

 

[n00b1488]

There's no registry 'folder', just the registry. No need to manually intervene, just double-click the .reg file and it'll be imported in the registry.

I did his instructions and i got blue screen ( running windows 7 macbook pro 13 early 2011 ) probably i will have to do the windows 7 registry mod manually.

Edit : After a second attempt I did the registry mod manually on windows 7 and used MBR + BootICE and now I have ACHI enable , my crucial mx500 performs a lot better but I lost some features on the storage executive tool, sleep remains there but I don't know if I should turn it off like OP suggested.

Edit 2 : I upgraded to windows 10 and after updating windows 10 to it's latest updates I got into restart loop with blue screen , apparently I will have to do the same registry process manually on windows 10 again.

 

[n00b1488]

How do you enable ahci for bay 3 & 4 (2 port ICH10 controller) in a 2009 MP 4,1 (flashed to 5,1)?
I run win7 with intel rst 11.7 and have tried everything I can throw at it.
Is there an alternative patchcode.bin that combines the 4 port and 2 port controller?
I've used the ACHI Enabler and bootice method, but always end up with errors when attempting to force the driver (bluescreens when forcing update driver and boot bluescreens when doing" milder" attempts).
Also boot times are really slow when ahci is on the 4 port and the 2 port runs in ide mode.

I got around bluescreens uninstalling bootcamp manager and the apple process at startup

 

[chris-snd]

Oke got something strange going on.

Did this tutorial on my mac pro 3.1 with win 10 pro installed from dvd some years ago and all was oke!

Now I'm doing the same on a mac pro 5.1, installed win 10 pro from dvd on a clean ssd, all went oke.

But, when i added a 1tb spinner harddisk in bay 3, win10 pro does not detect drive bay 3. I also tried it in bay 4, same results.

When i boot in osx, mojave does detect drive bay 3 and 4 so i guess i did something wrong.

If i put the spinner hd in bay 1 or 2 it does show up in win 10 pro!.




Could it have something to do with that i added this sata spinner 1tb drive after enabling sata ahci?

And why does it only work in bay 1 and 2, and not in bay 3 or 4?

 

[chris-snd]

Ok,

I restored the original backed up .bin file on the win 10 pro boot ssd, deleted the sata ahci drivers and I'm back at before the tutorial.

All bays 1,2,3 and 4 are working now in win 10 pro, all drives are regonized as ata drives and the "standard dual channel pci ide controller" are back under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

So let's try again


Edit> as soon i inject the altered.bin in the ssd and remove the pci ide controller, I'm back again as where I was. Bay 1 and 2 work in ahci, bay 3 and 4 don't detect.

I'm gonna investigate more tomorrow.

 

[chris-snd]

When i leave everything as is,

The mac pro does boot win 10 pro with the samsung ssd and original .bin in all bays.

When i boot win 10 pro with the same samsung ssd and the bin from this tutorial, the mac only boots in bay 1 and 2. Bays 3 and 4 give drive error at boot screen.

 

[chris-snd]

New day,

I thought, instead of going from scratch again, why not take the working ssd with win 10 pro out of my mac 3.1 and try that ssd to boot in the mac 5.1. After all, in my mac pro 3.1 all bays are regonized in win 10 pro as sata.

Well i did, exactly same results! I booted the mac pro 5.1 with the ssd i toke out the mac pro 3.1 with win 10 pro.
Again, also this mac pro 3.1 boot ssd with win 10 pro doesnt regonize bay 3 and bay 4 in the mac pro 5.1. If i put that mac pro 3.1 ssd in bay 3 or 4, again same results: it doesn't boot and gives the harddrive error.

So it looks like the mac pro 5.1 motherboard is blocking the sata port in bay 3 and 4 when booting windows in sata ahci mode. When using ata, all bays are available.

But why? Have other users experienced this?
I can't wrap my mind around this.

 

[s1l3nce]

For those who might be still struggling with this issue, I managed to fix it with a slightly different approach. Here is what I did. With this approach you can enable AHCI and achieve SATA III speeds even after installing Bootcamp and all the drivers.