enable AHCI for SATA without Bios access

[TripleEye]

Hello Community,

if I understood that correctly, before the installation of SnowLeo it is necessary to change the SATA mode from IDE to AHCI. In my Bios there is no such option. Now my questions are:

A: Is it possible to access the SATA settings from Windows 7 (I don't mean the registry entry to make windows deal with ahci!)

B: Is it possible to find any Bios for my notebook, where I can either access the option to change to AHCI OR where AHCI is enabled already (e.g. version for newer Notebook of the same type??)
On the Sony page there is no later Bios update available than the one I run.

The search function didn't seem to help me with this problelm.
I hope, I posted in the right thread and say thank you for your help already.

Specs are:

Sony Vaio VGN-FW5
CPU: Core2 Duo T9600 2x 2,8 Ghz
GPU: ATI Mobility Raedon HD 4570
RAM: 2x2gb nanya DDR2 800 Mhz
SATA: SSD Samsung 470 series 128gb (new one, didn't use it with the notebook before)
Bios: Aptio AMI R4070Y0 vers. 1.23.1109.
Motherboard is undetectabla via everest. Guess it's a customized one by Sony?!

 

[humph]

Some thoughts:

1) Did you try anyway? Perhaps it's defaulted to ACHI.

2) If not, this DSDT approach might be a way to force AHCI:
http://www.projectosx.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1150
But might not be applicable to your controller, depending on what it is (ICH-xyz).

3) Perhaps easier to make the install to a USB-connected drive. Then swop that over or clone it to the internal one via CCC/SuperDuper. You can usually boot and run in IDE/ATA just fine if the appropriate driver exists. Might work anyway if the chipset is supported by AppleIntelATA kext. Else look around for a suitable kext.

 

[TripleEye]

Hey humph, thanx for your reply!

1) Did you try anyway? Perhaps it's defaulted to ACHI.

It's defaulted to IDE.

2) If not, this DSDT approach might be a way to force AHCI:
http://www.projectosx.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1150
But might not be applicable to your controller, depending on what it is (ICH-xyz).

No mine is a ICH9M-E. Therefore this might not work either.

3) Perhaps easier to make the install to a USB-connected drive. Then swop that over or clone it to the internal one via CCC/SuperDuper. You can usually boot and run in IDE/ATA just fine if the appropriate driver exists. Might work anyway if the chipset is supported by AppleIntelATA kext. Else look around for a suitable kext.

Yes, maybe I could try that with a HDD. But since the SSD requires AHCI (it does, right?) anyways, this wont work finally.

Thanks for your sugestions.
I'll wait and drink some tea, or better coffee

 

[humph]

But since the SSD requires AHCI (it does, right?) anyways, this wont work finally...

Um, most (all?) SSDs can run in IDE mode (perhaps losing a few percent speed).
I guess just you don't get the ACHI stuff like NCQ etc? Not ideal, but OK. The main issue might be - if using certain vendor's SSDs that they seem to not like working in certain environments/BIOSs. Or they are just badly designed or something (thinking OCZs).