Tutorial : How to switch from IRRT to AHCI mode - E6400/E6500 (Vista)

Hi. Read the whole (13 pages) discussion about the IRRT problem on Dell notebooks.
Now I started to solve that problem as described but got a problem. Exactly TWO!

None of the described solutions worked for me. With both I got the same problem.
My Dell Latitude e4200 (installed with Windows 7 64bit Ultimate) didn´t started in AHCI mode.

I got the error message "F1 for retry, F2 for system configuration, F5 for diagnostic" (something like this).
So I realized that the AHCI mode wasn´t even able to start/initialize the drive.

I tried both ways ... edit the registry and update via Windows Boot-CD as well as complete new installation of Windows7 64bit Ultimate with AHCI.
When installing Windows7 from beginning I wasn´t able to boot the OS after installation. Only got above mentioned error message.

That was curious cause I installed the iaAHCI.inf driver. No ideas how to fix that.
Did anyone solve this problem? What did I wrong? No idea how to get the e4200 to boot with AHCI ...

 

I'm asking, since you don't mention it... you did press F2 and checked that AHCI was set in the BIOS, right?

 

Is this "how to" applicable for Windows 7 ?
I am having the same problem with audio on Dell Precision M4400.
After a certain period of time the audio is off. I need to reboot my laptop to recover the audio.

 

On W7 I did this: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=6009315&postcount=130

 

Any idea if TRIM can pass through IRRT? OR do I have to use AHCI?

 

My understanding is that IRRT is AHCI with some extra functionality. I've got an E6400 running Win 7 on a TRIM-enabled SSD connected via IRRT. It's unclear to me (in spite of doing some reading) how TRIM actually works.

Last week I noticed (via benchmarking) some drop-off in my SSD write performance so I defragged the SSD using Diskeeper. Performance was restored. However, I don't know whether Diskeeper worked by kicking TRIM into action or used another method. If there's a manual command to run TRIM then it is well hidden.

If you are worried about TRIM then you are most likely using Win 7. In which case youshould be able to use the repair disk to fix Windows if you change the interface to AHCI.

John

 

John Ratsey,

Thanks for the reply, I've been doing more research and it turns out that trim doesn't pass through the intel's windows stock drivers when you are set to IRRT. When set to AHCI it installs the Microsoft generic SATA driver which truly supports trim


http://communities.intel.com/thread/7874?start=0&tstart=0

TRIM: Deletes and clears blocks of data that were deleted on your SSD. An SSD must have an empty block before it can over write a segment, if that block is full of old data it must first clear that block before it writes resulting in the slow down you experienced. With trim enable there should never be any slow down in writes. It is also recommended that you do not defrag your drive, since these drives are random access there is no need to and wears them out more than anything.

 

Thanks for that info. My current driver is iaStor.sys, which isn't mentioned in your info. I'm aware that defragging isn't recommended.

I must try switching over to AHCI when I next reboot (having got the repair disc ready) and watch for any performance difference during the next few weeks.

John

 

Let me know how that works for you. Are you on Win7 also? I'm not exactly having luck with switching it on and using the repair disk. And I don't want to install any other driver besides the windows stock one MSAHCI.SYS.

 

I can now confirm that the Windows 7 repair disk doesn't work for me either. I'm not impressed.

John