Latitude E6400 Win 7 SP1 X64 - IRRT to AHCI

Obviously an old laptop that I really want to keep going for various reasons. It really is a good PC and happy with it. The in November the SSD went died. I will spare with you the history. I replaced it with a OCZ Vertex 4.
I am having a build up interrupts that after a couple of weeks I have down to an issue with latency tied using IRRT when I should be running it AHCI mode. Before doing I did a lot of research, and I found this thread which I used:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...m-irrt-to-ahci-mode-e6400-e6500-vista.349173/
I have zeroed out the Msahci Start registry entry. I also added the CriticalDeviceDatabase registry entry (verified). However when I am doing step 6 after I changed the BIOS entry, Windows starts, looks like it is doing something and then reboots with an error " there is something wrong with the startup would I like to repair"?

This link is to a Speecy created report with everything to do with my hardware:
http://speccy.piriform.com/results/8lnVpv7v1phblXEUcMAgAzb

Quickly though I have:
The latest BIOS from DELL A34
The current storage controller is Intel(R) ICH8M-E/PCHM SATA RAID Controller
The current IDE ATA/ATAPI controller is only the Ricoh MMC Host Controller

I have downloaded the current GM45 drivers. (Dell only provides pre OS installs) But cannot install them until I can get it into windows.

I am stuck and for the life of me I cannot figure out what is wrong. I was hoping someone could tell me the missing link - Please! Thank you.

 

I've been through this but a long time ago and can't remember anything more than what's in that guide. All that generation of Dell business notebooks have the same problem so see if this helps. However, are you running Vista, Windows 7 or something else? This might also help. The underlying challenge is to get a few lines into the registry so that Windows can run in AHCI once you switch in the BIOS. Otherwise, if Windows can't recognise the storage device then everything stops.

John

 

Yeah I know it is a bit of a way back machine issue. I will study over this and see what happens. Thank you John, I will post my results succeed or fail.

 

OK, this is where i am stuck and getting ready to pull my hair out. The hard part of this whole thing is getting the drivers installed. I downloaded the proper RST drivers for my system from Dell. The problem is Dell has them as Pre OS Install drivers. When I execute the download it basically unzips them in to a directory \dell\drivers\jcnip

Here is what is in the directory:

Directory of C:\Dell\Drivers\jcnjp

02/18/2019 01:01 AM <DIR> .
02/18/2019 01:01 AM <DIR> ..
04/28/2010 12:28 PM 78,888 F6Readme.txt
03/12/2010 07:19 AM 8,690 iaAHCI.cat
03/03/2010 07:14 PM 8,800 iaAHCI.inf
04/28/2010 04:05 AM 7,961 iaStor.cat
04/27/2010 09:56 AM 7,652 iaStor.inf
03/03/2010 07:51 PM 540,696 iaStor.sys
05/28/2009 04:55 PM 22,644 license.txt
03/03/2010 07:14 PM 5,519 TXTSETUP.OEM
06/28/2010 01:57 PM 408 Version.txt
9 File(s) 681,258 bytes

So the driver is right there but I cannot figure out how to install. If I can I would be able to do the registry detailed in what you provided the link to.

Any ideas?

 

The downloadable drivers are packaged to be installed using the "Press F6 to install driver" option during Windows installation. Is that a route to fixing the problem? Does your ancient (I assume) version of Windows have a repair option which gets you to the Press F6 option?

There's a guide here about the locations where the storage drivers need to go within the Windows folders. Otherwise it's a matter for looking around for similar guides for the installation process. Perhaps this?

John

 

John,

Thanks for your assistance so far, if you would let me bend your ear one more time.

I am really close (I think). First, I used PnPUtil to install the driver folder I downloaded from Dell. Now when I look in the driverstore\filerepository I have two folders:
"C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\iastor.inf_amd64_neutral_c065a1006c648409"
"C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\iastor.inf_amd64_neutral_ff424d2ceda634a2"

The second entry had the date of my current date. The first one my first attempt at installing the drivers. How can I relate the entry back to the class in registry (guess). How do I can I verify?

I have to the best of my ability interpreting what the .inf files, TXTSETUP.OEM were trying to do I have determined that the original one is correct. It needs to be PCI#VEN_8086&DEV_2929 by itself. Now the other two I have other entries I am not sure about but I will try to figure out but I don't think I need them because my laptop has Intel's Matrix Storage Manager and it appears to handle them all, so I might need to change the first ones (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\PCI#VEN_8086&DEV_2929&CC_0106]
"ClassGUID"="{4d36e96a-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}") to relate to the MSM but I don't think so, I think it is already set up which is why the first matches well.

So if you can assist with any of this that would be helpful. If you can't can you just answer these two questions:

1. The suffix of the driverstore\filerepository folder
2. The first one I posted edits HKLM_SYSTEM_ControlSet001 but the others edit HKLM_SYSTEM_CurrentControlSet. From what I can tell it should be Current but I am not sure which one gets evoked based on startup type.

You have been a big help and I really appreciate it for this old PC. I have cleaned up well so I just would like to do this one last thing to maximize performance (because one of the apps is doing some I/O every 15 seconds and it is not fast enough because of the latency).

Kevin

 

I wonder if the driverstore only gets checked on initial installation. Try putting iastor.sys into the C:\Windows\System32\drivers folder as that's where Windows will look once it is configured. However, I don't know for sure but it's possible that some of the other files in the Intel package need to go into various folders.

John

 

John, I will look and try to figure that out. Thank you.

Do you know if I should add the registry entry in currentcontrolset or controlset001?

Kevin

 

I don't know but it won't hurt if you add the registry entries in both places.

John

 

John,
I am about to give up I am so frustrated. So yes I put them in both (I kind of thought that myself). I have compared the .inf entries of the dell drivers I installed and the two others. Here is where I am at and this where I lacking. What happens when I boot is windows starts to boot (the circle starts) it stops, restarts and displays the windows recovery. I have tried both start normally and repair.

Something else is confusing me and unfortunately the only way for me easily show you is to give you the regentries from the first one and then the two from posts you provided me. I have and E6400. The first matches my 8060 dev 2929. The others are other chipsets. I will add more after the entries:

E6400/E6500 Original Post:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\PCI#VEN_8086&DEV_2929&CC_0106]
"ClassGUID"="{4d36e96a-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}"
"Service"="iaStor"
"Security"=hex:01,00,04,90,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,00,00,02,\
00,4c,00,03,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,ff,01,1f,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,\
00,00,00,00,18,00,ff,01,1f,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,20,02,00,\
00,00,00,18,00,9f,01,12,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,21,02,00,00

Second Post - M4700 Entries

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_8086&dev_1c03&cc_0106]
"Service"="iaStor"
"ClassGUID"="{4d36e96a-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci]
"Start"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor]
"Type"=dword:00000001
"Start"=dword:00000000
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"Tag"=dword:00000019
"ImagePath"="system32\\DRIVERS\\iaStor.sys"
"DisplayName"="Intel AHCI Controller"
"Group"="SCSI Miniport"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Parameters]
"BusType"=dword:00000003

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor\Enum]
"0"="PCI\\VEN_8086&DEV_1C03&SUBSYS_04A31028&REV_04\\3&11583659&0&FA"
"Count"=dword:00000001
"NextInstance"=dword:00000001

Second Post - M4800


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_8086&dev_1e03]
"ClassGUID"="{4d36e96a-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}"
"Service"="msahci"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_8086&dev_1e03&cc_0106]
"Service"="iaStor"
"ClassGUID"="{4d36e96a-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}"
"Security"=hex:01,00,04,90,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,00,00,02,\
00,4c,00,03,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,ff,01,1f,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,\
00,00,00,00,18,00,ff,01,1f,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,20,02,00,\
00,00,00,18,00,00,00,00,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,21,02,00,00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci]
"Start"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor]
"Type"=dword:00000001
"Start"=dword:00000000
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"Tag"=dword:00000019


A couple other things is that uses "iastor" and "msachi". I getting those confused too. In the .inf files from DELL the entry for device 2929 is in iaACHI.inf. The other DELL entry is iastor.inf does not have mine.

Lastly it looks in inf file that it is supposed to bind to ICH9M-E/M SATA AHCI controller. The storage controller that is installed on my machine is the "Intel Matrix Storage is Intel(R) ICH8M-E/ICH9M-E/PCHM SATA Raid Conroller"

Any clues?

Kevin

Thank you