Old HP dc7800p and SSD Installation : check

[#1]

Hello Team, new in the forum

I have ordered an CT275MX300SSD1 that according to the check with the crucial agent should be fine with my old HP dc7800p

One thing is not clear to me, basically when is the right time to enable AHCI in BIOS, let me ask if the order of the things to do is correct here below

1- extract the current HD with OS and put it in an external USD bay, connect via USB

2- replace the original bootable HD with the new SSD

3- ready to start from CD the Acronis sw....

3a-  Q. HERE: when I restart the PC , should I enter BIOS  and change from IDE to RAID to enable AHCI  NOW ?

4- clone the HD

5- remove the usb with the original bootable HD

6- ready to restart the PC

7- Q. HERE: in case step 3a was not necessary, when I restart the PC , should I enter BIOS  and change from IDE to RAID to enable AHCI NOW ?

Thanks in advance

regs

Franco

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Changing from IDE to RAID isn't a problem because of your drive.  It's a problem because Windows doesn't support such an act.  So when you do it in relation to changing the drive isn't relevant.  Just that you've pre-prepared Windows for the action.  What version of Windows do you have?

[#3]

THanks for the reply

I have win 10 Pro and I think I have prepared it for the migration as you say followinf a post in the Microsoft Community..

Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci\ 
1- I changed the  Error Control  from 3 to 0 
2- In the StartOverride folder I set the registry called 0 from the value of 3 to 0 

I haven't changed the BIOS from IDE to RAID yet but if I do this now with the current disk this should work if the changes I made in WIN 10 are suffucient and correct right?

Still a question remains:  to instal the SSD drive it's MANDATOY to change the BIOS from IDE to RAID/AHCI ? 

thanks

Franco

[#4]

Update: I changed the BIOS from IDE to RAID, first restart the computer is confirming me there is NO RAID configured ( I support because SATA1 is the DVD player and SATA0 is the OS disk) then proceeds.

The Windows Icon pops up and stays for some seconds, then the screen with the message UNACCESSIBLE BOOT DEVICE appears .

I changed BIOS back to IDE and I am back

What do I miss in WIN 10 to make it work ?

Thx

F

[#5]

Looks like I have sorted this out:

1- from an elevated command prompt, type bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal -  the machine will reboot in safemode

2- shutdown /r /t 0

3- during reboot enter BIOS and change from IDE to RAID

4- machine boots in safemode and loads all the necessary drivers to support RAID

5- reset the bcdedit and boot into the normal mode   bcdedit /deletevalue {current} safeboot minimal

6- shutdown /r /t 0

Machine is back up now, RAID set in BIOS, win 10 seems ok, will use it for a while 

I think cloning this disk now will make the new SSD HD work fine

Any comment is welcome

F

[#6]

Sorry. A rare day of sunshine in the UK led to me being away from the computer for the day.  But it looks like you got it sorted.

The main need for AHCI/RAID is introduces NCQ.  This lets drives optimise the order they deal with drive requests from the operating system in, rather than doing them in the order the OS said.  It can make SSD's a lot faster when asked to do lost of small read/writes at the same time.  You'd see this in benchmarks under queued 4k read/write tests.  With NCQ off, they'll be the same speed as single 4k tests.  With it on, it'll be several times quicker.

Generally you'd use AHCI for this if you weren't also setting up RAID.  But RAID has been fine for SSD's in single drive mode for years now too.  I had to do it on an old Dell that didn't support AHCI.  Only IDE or RAID.

[#7]

Thanks for clarifying the reason why.

Yes, my old HP just supports IDE or RAID only .

F