Thursday, August 19, 2010

Windows 7 How to enable AHCI


Windows 7 will disable AHCI if it is disabled in BIOS when you install it.  If you try to enable it in BIOS you won't be able to boot.  Here's the solution:

  • Change your Sata controller mode in BIOS back to IDE and reboot
  • Open your registry editor (regedit) and search for the key "msahci"
  • Change the Start value from 3 to 0
  • Reboot
  • Go into your BIOS en enable AHCI
  • Save and reboot
When you reboot Windows 7 will update the driver for AHCI.  Once fully rebooted reboot again for good measure.  You should be good to go.

Windows 7 Update Error 80080005


Are you getting windows 7 update error 80080005? I wasted a lot of time chasing this one as this error code is common to Vista and other problems.

Here's a quick fix. The problem is that you probably loaded a lot of 'stuff' and your registry is full. This is what you need to do (under an administrator account):

  1. Open your registry editor
  2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control
  3. Edit the RegistrySizeLimit key
  4. Set the value to 4294967295 in decimal pr ffffff in hex
  5. Reboot
After this windows update should run fine. Let me know if this helped you or post a quesiton.