How to Change SATA Hard Disk Mode from IDE to AHCI / RAID in BIOS after Installing Windows?

Today we are going to address a very common but one of the most irritating problems in this tutorial.

Consider following scenario:

You got a new computer system in which the SATA hard disk controller mode in BIOS settings was set to IDE ( or IDE Compatibility or Standard IDE) instead of AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) or RAID for better compatibility. You didn’t notice that and installed Windows. After sometime you realized it and changed the SATA mode from IDE to AHCI or RAID in BIOS and BOOM!!! You made your Windows crashed. Windows will no longer start and will show a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) containing error code “STOP 0x0000007B INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE“.

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Windows_BSOD.png

Why??? Because Windows can’t load the new drivers for AHCI or RAID interface. Actually when Windows is installed, it automatically disables unused storage drivers to speed up Windows startup process.

As a temporary fix, you can reset the SATA mode from AHCI or RAID to IDE in BIOS but you’ll find yourself in the same situation. Or you can reinstall Windows but that would require lots of time and efforts.

Then how to switch SATA hard disk mode from IDE to AHCI or RAID in BIOS after installing Windows so that you would not need to repair or reinstall Windows?

Here is the solution! You just need to tell Windows that hard disk mode is going to change upon reboot using Windows Registry and Windows will automatically detect the mode and will install the required drivers and you’ll be able to successfully change the SATA mode in BIOS without any need to reinstall Windows.

So without wasting time lets start the tutorial:

1. First DO NOT change SATA hard disk mode settings in BIOS, leave it to the default settings which were used while installing Windows.

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2. Now start Windows and type regedit in RUN or Start Menu search box and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.

3. Now go to following keys one by one:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\pciide

In right-side pane, look for a DWORD “Start“. Double-click on it and set its value to 0 (That’s zero and not alphabet O).

Reset_SATA_Hard_Disk_Mode_AHCI_Settings.png

Reset_SATA_Hard_Disk_Mode_IDE_Settings.png

4. If you are using RAID or other interface, do the same thing for following key as well:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStorV

In right-side pane, look for a DWORD “Start“. Double-click on it and set its value to 0 (That’s zero and not alphabet O).

Reset_SATA_Hard_Disk_Mode_RAID_Settings.png

5. That’s it. It’ll reset the hard disk mode settings in Windows registry. Close Registry Editor and restart your system.

6. Now enter into BIOS settings and change SATA hard disk mode to AHCI or RAID according to your requirements.

Change_SATA_Hard_Disk_Controller_Mode_BIOS.png

Related: How to Enter BIOS Settings on Your Windows PC?

7. As soon as Windows will start booting, it’ll automatically detect the change and will install the appropriate drivers. Once the drivers are installed, Windows will boot without any problem and you’ll not need to reinstall Windows just to change SATA hard disk mode.

PS: If you don’t want to edit the registry manually and want a ready-made registry script to do the task automatically, download following ZIP file, extract it and run the extracted REG file. It’ll ask for confirmation, accept it:

Download Registry Script

ALTERNATIVE METHOD:

You can also try following method suggested by one of our readers:

1. Open RUN dialog box by pressing WIN+R keys together and then type msconfig (Windows 8 or later users can open RUN dialog box by right-clicking far left-bottom corner of desktop, then selecting Run option).

2. Click on Boot tab, enable Safe boot checkbox, apply the changes and restart your computer.

3. Upon restart, get into BIOS settings (by pressing DEL or F2 key most likely), change the hard disk mode to AHCI, might also have to change boot order SCSI, save settings on exit and reboot. Windows will now boot in safe mode.

4. Run msconfig again, go to Boot tab, unmark Safe boot option and restart PC.

That’s it. Now your PC will work fine.

Published in: Troubleshooting Guides, Windows 7, Windows Vista

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

Comments

NOTE: Older comments have been removed to reduce database overhead.

  1. thank you ever so much

    I had imaged an exact same system- and tried everything

    just a simple task of setting the disk mode worked perfectly!

    thanks again

  2. I tried the alternative method (booting in safe mode) in Windows 10 and it worked perfectly.

  3. I dont have an AHCI mode in BIOS but i do have intel(r) 5 series 6 port sata ahci controller. help!!! chipset is intel pm 55

  4. I recently installed a new samsung evo ssd on Win 8.1 x64, and could not succesfully switch to ACHI. I changed all the parameters to “0” as descriped above, but still i got an error after bootup. The suggested “alternative methode” worked like a charm :Open RUN dialog box by pressing WIN+R keys together and then type msconfig (Windows 8 or later users can open RUN dialog box by right-clicking far left-bottom corner of desktop, then selecting Run option).

    2. Click on Boot tab, enable Safe boot checkbox, apply the changes and restart your computer.

    3. Upon restart, get into BIOS settings (by pressing DEL or F2 key most likely), change the hard disk mode to AHCI, might also have to change boot order SCSI, save settings on exit and reboot. Windows will now boot in safe mode.

    4. Run msconfig again, go to Boot tab, unmark Safe boot option and restart PC.

    That’s it. Now your PC will work fine.

    Thank you so much for that brilliant and simple solution.

  5. sir i have lenevo i3 processer laptop and i want change windows xp sp3 but when i go bios setting i dont find any sata control mode i am facing big problem how to solve this problem

  6. I am using Windows10 and I couldn’t find the “msahci”,
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci
    So, 1st method didn’t work for me.

    I tried alternative method and was successful.
    Read/write speed improved from 203/223 Mbps to 280/260 Mbps. (Samsung SSD EVO 850 on SATA 2 port; my laptop is 6+years 😛 )

    Thank you for the solution.
    – Prosenjit Biswas

  7. Nice one VG, your instructions worked a treat. Thanks!

    I have one QQ – after updating the registry my PC booted fine with AHCI mode enabled. I’ve checked the registry and the Start properties of msahci and iaStorV are still 0. Does this mean the drivers are being installed every time the PC boots?

    (pciide was already 0 so I left that alone)

    I’d also like to say this website has been a revelation! I’m in progress of updating my Win7 to Win10, but I want a dual boot 7/10 arrangement. Your article on how to do that with Win10 upgrade is brilliant. Thanks again. (I hope it works when I get to that point ;o) )

  8. The method with msconfig is the easiest and I most grateful to you for this post.
    And it works with Win10 as well. 🙂

  9. My problem is a little different. I have a new WIN 10 gaming desktop that only has a 500GB SSD running in AHCI mode (yes, ASUS sells them that way). I’ve installed a 2TB HD, and plan to clone the SSD onto it, making the HD serve as the main drive and boot from it. Then I plan to use Intel’s Smart Response Technology to configure the SSD as 64 GB cache and partition the remaining unused space as another drive.

    The problem is I have to switch the SATA controller RAID mode. I don’t want to install windows, reinstall the drivers, and try to find and reinstall all of the apps that came with the computer (over 80% of them are actually useful.)

    My questions are; 1) Will either of the two approaches work for this?
    2) If not, are there any alternatives?
    3) How should I backup the drives to have the best chance of
    recovering the drivers and app?

  10. mine not work on both step either regedit or msconfig…..

    I want to change from IDE to AHCI

    1. regedit – once i change on regedit, restart > bios> sata config> to AHCI and reboot, it will blue screen and keep restarting after blue screen.

    2. msconfig – once i enable the safe mode on boot tab, > restart> it will not boot on safe mood, it will blue screen and keep restarting again, means it will crash whenever try to boot to windows. so I cant access to safe mode actually….

    I have to revert back to IDE and my windows will run as normal again…..

    anybody facing the similar issue with me?? Im using DELL laptop

  11. Thanks man… You are an angel. I was having problems about this sata/ide situation for a long time. And didn’t know what to do about it. Now it’s all good thanks to this detailed information you provided.

    Cheers.

  12. Would be great if this guide went into further details on how to force former business/corporate computers that has only a RAID option (no ACHI) & IDE into a AHCI mode.

    Am wondering if RW Everything has some settings that can compensate/rewritten for this, as NVIDIA abandoned untold millions of clients in 2010 & now these computers are sold at low cost on eBay. NVIDIA is a far better GPU (& PSU) OEM over their MB offerings for BTX style PC’s during the mid XP/Vista years. Of course, once Windows 7 arrived, along with SSD’s emerging, they bailed out.

    Really, with these MB’s, no one needs to slipstream a SATA driver to install W2K, much less XP. I call these ‘fake SATA’ ports because in essence, that’s the way it is. Yet with RW Everything, would seem that much anything is possible, so would be great to see a solution posted.

    Cat

  13. Worked like a charm. I used the Safe Boot method rather than the regedit as I was missing the Msahci folder in the registry. I used as-ssd benchmark to measure before and after which showed a score of 261 in IDE mode and 381 in AHCI mode. Very happy!

  14. Many thanks for this work around. It worked great! I had installed fresh copy of Win 7 Pro on a new SSD and had it all about finished and remembered that I had not set the BIOS to AHCI when I installed it. You guys bailed me out on that one.

  15. Dell XPS 8900 Did a fresh install of Windows 10. msahci does not exist in the registry. The other values are already set to 0, not O

  16. Just had a Dell tech replace the motherboard and audio board on a XPS 8700 system. System works fine with exception that I can’t boot properly. I get a black screen with a couple of messages on it:

    1: FXE-E53: No boot filename received
    2: FXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM
    3: Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot drive and click…..

    The only way to boot is to click on F12 and select “Windows Boot Manager”. After reading several articles I suspect that the system is not booting properly from the SSD drive but not sure. After reading your article I went into the registry to see what my settings were. However, I could not find mashci in the Service subdirectory. Some of the other files were listed but not the mashci. Dell’s first response was to reinstall Windows which would wipe out all of my data and programs so I declined this. They are looking into it further. Any help understanding what the issue is would be helpful.

  17. I finally changed my Win 7 Samsung SSD 850 boot drive to ahci from ide settings in the BIOS. I had to set registry Start values to 0 in ALL the following keys under services as directed above. atapi, iastor, iastorV, msahci, and pciide. And I made those changes while in MSConfig SafeBoot (Minimal) as suggested above. I rebooted back into SafeMode after changing to ahci in the bios and then rebooted again after getting out of SafeMode. The system hung and I had to power it off. I rebooted one more time and it worked! I have been fighting this for two days on a dual boot machine with one ssd in ahci and the older ssd in ide. I don’t recall the forum that mentioned both atapi and iastor as needing Start values of 0 but that seemed to do the trick. Thanks to all who contributed to this forum thread. My life will be much easier. Namaste

  18. i accednentally went in i think bos where itssays achi on my dell desktop and changed it to ata now montor wont conncect to computer and it beeps how can i get back the achi setting since i cannt see on the screen

  19. Thanks for the solution, your first solution worked perfectly on my desktop-computer with SSD root and DAID for data! I set all three values to 0 (pciide was already 0, others were 3), rebooted and set BIOS from IDE to AHCI (no RAID-option, just “disabled” and those two). Win7 repoted it installed various ATA etc drivers, like 7-8. It asked to reboot, which I did. After reboot it reported new driver for my Kingston SSD and asked for reboot. Aftter reboot, all is clear. Big thanks! 🙂

  20. Thanks for this
    PC = HP KV330ET circa 2011 running w7 Pro

    doing the regedit fixed it for me – only the MSHCI needed changing was 3, the set zero

    After the first boot new drivers were installed and two popups suggested a reboot was needed.

    Rebooted next time no problem

    The safeboot method did not work

    I hate having to cross my fingers when I change something like this – but it might have helped.

  21. hey man, you really are a genius. I mean TOTALLY GENIUS!
    but hey you know what? after i looked down and read all those parts of the comments i was just afraid to change that method..
    what if my wife get fire after her laptop get blank or bootloop? 😀
    can you help me out to get back to normal state or back to load windows again?
    I mean someone said when all those methods don’t work at all, just need to go into BIOS again and change to RAID to get Windows back to normal?
    Is it true?
    thanks man for the quick response anw~

  22. Thank you very much. I was close to reinstall win7 in ahci mode until I found this article and decided to give it a try. It worked for me.

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