The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    AHCI Mode?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by fotak, Jul 25, 2008.

  1. fotak

    fotak Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    49
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    I just bought my new laptop, Acer TravelMate 5720 and plan to format everything and put my XP on it. It comes with Vista Home Premium and I don't want to use it. After some playing in the BIOS I saw the SATA AHCI/IDE Mode. Searched a bit, it seems that it's not worth bothering with AHCI driver installation? I didn't find proper drivers, nor do I know how to install the drivers during XP install since the notebook doesn't have a floppy drive. Can it be done from a separate CD?
     
  2. Andy

    Andy Notebook Prophet

    Reputations:
    2,133
    Messages:
    6,399
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    206
    You can buy a USB Floppy drive (if your BIOS supports booting from USB devices)....or n-lite the SATA drivers into the XP install....Check out this link
     
  3. Hmuan Mnid

    Hmuan Mnid Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Have you checked the drive to determine if it's a SATA?

    You should only need to go into BIOS and adjust it to SATA (presuming the drive is SATA) and the installation disc will load just fine. I've seen this before, no drivers need to be installed if you do it this way. Wasted a little time trying to figure out how to approach it, but it worked like a charm once it was set to SATA. Of course this was for a T61p that was using a SATA drive.

    After the OS is installed you can go back into BIOS and readjust the setting to the SATA AHCI/IDE mode.
     
  4. KrispyKreme50

    KrispyKreme50 Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    41
    Messages:
    678
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    How can you tell if your hard drive is running in AHCI mode if you have an AMD notebook? On Intel systems, you usually have the option of changing between AHCI-->RAID-->IDE but that option isn't there for AMD systems.
     
  5. Andy

    Andy Notebook Prophet

    Reputations:
    2,133
    Messages:
    6,399
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    206
    AMD..?? :confused:
     
  6. fotak

    fotak Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    49
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Yes, as I said, it's a SATA disk. I just don't know if it's worth the trouble of getting the drivers and everything.

    I haven't stated it's an AMD notebook, and it's not an AMD, it's Intel so I have the AHCI Mode in BIOS.


    One more thing. My system hasn't come with any recovery discs, nor discs of any other kind. I've been reading that there's an Acer recovery partition which I can use to revert to factory settings. However, I haven't managed to call up the repair menu during the booting... I just want to have a backup in case it voids the warranty because I'll be installing XP on it.
     
  7. Nirvana

    Nirvana Notebook Prophet

    Reputations:
    2,200
    Messages:
    5,426
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
  8. Andy

    Andy Notebook Prophet

    Reputations:
    2,133
    Messages:
    6,399
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    206
    I am not sure, but you have to press F10 for the recovery menu, or something....
    You can keep the recovery partition intact on the notebook and not touch it and install XP on another partition....or just dual boot

    For installing XP, you can use the N-lite method, but there are other ways as well....such as above..!! ^
     
  9. KrispyKreme50

    KrispyKreme50 Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    41
    Messages:
    678
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Sorry I was asking a separate question but I guess it got mixed up as being a reply to the OP.