Question re AHCI Driver Install on Windows 7

[Larry Stern]

I have installed the AHCI drivers following the instructions from Ludachris on my 2006 Mac Pro. I am running Win7 64bit without problem.

 

My question is how do I know that my disk drives are definitely working in AHCI mode rather than in IDE mode?? In device manager under IDE/ATA controllers, both "standard ide..." and the "Intel ESB2 AHCI SATA" are shown. In device manager, the intel ESB2 adapter is shown without problem. When I look in the disk drive section of device manager, under properties, the driver shown for my disk drives is "Microsoft 6.1.7600.16385".

 

I hope my question above is clear. How can I be sure that my disk drives are operating in AHCI mode. Thanks for any response

[ludacrisvp]

Well, the answer is really self evident.

The 2006, and 2008 Mac Pro both had included an IDE controller for running 2 optical devices.... These are being seen as your "Standard IDE..." and there should also be an "Intel 631xESB/6321ESB Ultra ATA Storage Controller - 269E"

Then the one that tells you what you want to see is the final device listed.

"Intel® ESB2 AHCI SATA Controller"

 

This tells you that you are in AHCI mode.

I would advise that you install the following Intel driver for Windows 7 32/64 bit compatible install.

Its direct from Intel website.

If that installs then you are also confirmed to be in AHCI mode since it cannot install to a non AHCI system.

It also has the ability to run a system report that will tell you if your devices support NCQ (native command queuing)

 

Intel Matrix Storage Manager v8.9

 

English: IATA89ENU.exe

Ver:8.9.0.1023 Date:7/17/2009 Size:6935 (KB) Time @56Kbps:16.05 min

Supported OS:Windows 7*, Windows 7, 32-bit*, Windows 7, 64-bit*, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition*, Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition*, Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition*, Windows Server 2003*, Windows Server 2008*, Windows Vista 32*, Windows Vista 64*, Windows Vista*, Windows XP Home Edition*, Windows XP Media Center Edition*, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition*, Windows XP Professional*

 

This driver provides support for high-capacity & fault-tolerant Serial ATA (SATA) RAID 5 arrays and high-performance & fault-tolerant SATA RAID 10 arrays on select Intel® 5 Series, 4 Series, 3 Series, 965, 975X, 955X and 945 chipset-based platforms. It provides support for high-performance SATA RAID 0 arrays & redundant SATA RAID 1 arrays on select Intel® 5 Series, 4 Series, 3 Series, 965, 975X, 955X, 945, 925, 915 chipset-based platforms. It also provides AHCI support on select Intel® 5 Series, 4 Series, 3 Series, 965, 975X, 955X, 945, 925 and 915 chipset-based platforms, as well as on Mobile Intel® 915/910 chipset-based platforms.

 

Note: Intel® RAID Technology requires the Intel® ICH9R/ICH9M-E/ICH10R/PCH/PCHM SATA RAID controller hub, Intel® 82801HR I/O controller hub (ICH8R), Intel® 631xESB/632xESB I/O controller hub, Intel® 82801GR/GH I/O controller hub (ICH7R/DH), Intel® 82801FR I/O controller hub (ICH6R).

[irrational John]

I have installed the AHCI drivers following the instructions from Ludachris on my 2006 Mac Pro. I am running Win7 64bit without problem.

For those of us coming late to a discussion it can help to have a link back to the post containing the instructions you followed.

 

In this case I'm mostly just curious. My understanding based on working with non-Apple motherboards is that Windows 7 automagically detects ACHI and installs the drivers for it when installing to a PC motherboard. I would expect it to work the same way on a Mac Pro and I'm surprised you'd have to do anything special.

 

My question is how do I know that my disk drives are definitely working in AHCI mode rather than in IDE mode??

While I agree with the prev post pointing out that you can probably just trust what you see in device manager, another (Windows) option is to install one of the freeware hardware info programs such as (for example) PC Wizard.

 

I would advise that you install the following Intel driver for Windows 7 32/64 bit compatible install.

And I, on the other hand, would advise you to not try to fix what appears to not be broken ... at least not before thinking it through a bit more.

 

My (admittedly limited) understanding of Intel's Matrix Storage Manager driver is that it is primarily intended to support hardware (firmware?) RAID on their I/O controller chipsets which support this. I'm curious as to what chipset your Mac Pro uses and whether the Matrix drivers would even install on it. (I couldn't seem to find out by googling. All I came up with was this.)

 

Perhaps (Windows) CPU-Z would tell you what chipset you are using? Alternatively, perhaps the "Hardware RAID" section of OS X System Profiler would say something interesting?

[ludacrisvp]

For those of us coming late to a discussion it can help to have a link back to the post containing the instructions you followed.

Well I guess he didn't think it was all that necessary seeing as my HOWTO post is a mere 5 posts down from the top in this section and has been near the top of this section since it was originally posted about a year ago.

I do think that this entire thread should actually be IN that thread since it is related to that HOWTO.

In this case I'm mostly just curious. My understanding based on working with non-Apple motherboards is that Windows 7 automatically detects AHCI and installs the drivers for it when installing to a PC motherboard. I would expect it to work the same way on a Mac Pro and I'm surprised you'd have to do anything special.

Yes, for the most part you are right. However there are some things that you should also be aware of...

PC motherboards have a BIOS that has settings that control the hardware's functionality, in this case if the storage controller is to be set in IDE mode for compatibility for legacy operating systems, or in AHCI mode for modern OS.

 

An Apple motherboard lacks a BIOS and has EFI instead, there are debates regarding what is better to have out there, but is off topic... The Apple EFI has the ability to emulate a BIOS for legacy systems. In that legacy BIOS Apple decided to have the storage controller enter legacy mode as well, this would make the most sense at the time since Windows XP install disc did not include any AHCI drivers and they would need to be loaded via a floppy disk. Now with modern OS like Vista and W7 that have AHCI support out of the box, the lack of support made this hack needed.

 

If the PC-MB is set to legacy win7 installs legacy IDE mode drivers, if set to AHCI then win7 installs AHCI mode drivers.

If Apple-MB is booting anything other than OSX it runs the emulated bios and that sets legacy mode and then win7 installs legacy IDE mode drivers, if this hack is applied then it runs the emulated bios from apple and forces the controller to AHCI mode then starts to load win7 therefore win7 installs AHCI mode drivers.

While I agree with the prev post pointing out that you can probably just trust what you see in device manager, another (Windows) option is to install one of the freeware hardware info programs such as (for example) PC Wizard.

And I, on the other hand, would advise you to not try to fix what appears to not be broken ... at least not before thinking it through a bit more.

Well what device manager says is there is what windows sees. I also do agree somewhat with if it aint broke don't fix it, but without "fixing" stuff that works there are a lot less advancements made.

My (admittedly limited) understanding of Intel's Matrix Storage Manager driver is that it is primarily intended to support hardware (firmware?) RAID on their I/O controller chipsets which support this.

Yes, the main reason for the storage manager would be for the RAID abilities that it has, the storage manager RAID features only works for hardware RAID with the Intel chipsets that have support.

The storage manager is installed simply because it included the updated drivers for the Intel chipsets that are better than the generic ones that come with Windows Vista and Win7.

Even though the hardware is in AHCI mode and not RAID mode the storage manager still does show some useful information.

I'm curious as to what chipset your Mac Pro uses and whether the Matrix drivers would even install on it. (I couldn't seem to find out by googling. All I came up with was this.)

The image below is a screenshot from inside Vista showing that the Matrix storage system is installed and working, along side device manager showing the controller as "Intel ESB2 SATA AHCI Controller" along with MacPro specific hardware, such as the 8 intel xeon processor cores listed. Also another one below it from when I had XP installed.

Vista screenshot

XP screenshot

But more to the point about this one is that the Intel Matrix storage manager refuses to install on a system that doesn't meet the requirements of either having an Intel controller in RAID mode or an Intel controller in AHCI mode. (well it is a lot more strict than that but you get the idea)

The storage manager will not install on any Mac Pro that is booting without this hack, this is because it doesn't find the right hardware for its drivers.

Perhaps (Windows) CPU-Z would tell you what chipset you are using?

Cpu-z reveals that the system is the following

Processors - 2x Quad core Intel Xeon E5462 @ 2.8Ghz - Harpertown Socket 771 LGA 45nm 1.6Ghz FSB

Motherboard - Apple Mac-F42C88C8

Northbridge Chipset - Intel 5400B rev C0

Southbridge Chipset - Intel 6321ESB rev 09

If you want another board that is comparable to this look up the Intel SkullTrail board.

Its about the same but the southbridge is Nvidia on the skulltrail to allow for SLI gaming support.

Alternatively, perhaps the "Hardware RAID" section of OS X System Profiler would say something interesting?

The Hardware RAID section of system profiler never displays anything unless you have added the Apple RAID card.

Apple removed the RAID support from the Intel chipset in order to push their own solution that has OSX only in mind.

The hack can be made to enable RAID mode instead of AHCI mode, but since apple removed the support (or didnt include it - reports are that apple didnt include a CSM module inside the EFI that would have enable the RAID support) the controller doesn't have any RAID functionality.