What are benefits of switching SATA mode to AHCI

[pegazuz]

I read the following post elsewhere on the internet when trying to find info on how to set up BIOS for my SATA drives running in non RAID setting.

For example, assume that you install Windows Vista on a computer that contains a controller that uses the Pciide.sys driver. Later, you change the SATA mode to AHCI. Therefore, the drive must now load the Msahci.sys driver. However, you must enable the Msahci.sys driver before you make this change.

If you don't change the registry then
Consider the following scenario. In the BIOS setup of a Microsoft Windows Vista-based computer, you change the Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) mode of the boot drive to use the Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) specification. You then restart the computer. In this scenario, you receive the following error message:
STOP 0x0000007B INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE

I installed Vista in IDE mode and was thinking of changing this SATA mode to ACHI but wonder if I am going to see benefits from doing this. I don't know if I have the necessary driver installed either yet since it doesn't show up in a file search.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: What are benefits of switching SATA mode to AHCI

You must install the AHCI driver when installing the OS. If you know of a way to not, then that is news to me but I dont know if this is what you are asking or not?

I think it is slower myself, I have tested both ways, and you also have a slower boot time because the AHCI BIOS must load each time at windows startup

And AHCI features require newer disks, hot swap I think would work for any SATA drive, but NCQ would have to be a newer drive with this feature. And NCQ is used whether you have AHCI enabled or not if you have a NCQ drive. Just so you know incase you wanted to use AHCI for this feature