Hey guys, I have the MSI P35 platinum board and after installing windows and running everything for a while I decided to install and run my SATA drives in AHCI mode. After installing the intel drivers then changing my seletion in the bios to AHCI, when I check my hard drives in Device manager my OS drive the 74G Raptor shows up at RAID_VOLUME_1 and then my 2nd hard drive shows as regular (like before) WD500AAKS SATAII drive.

I didnt enable the raid selection in the bios, just the AHCI. Anyone run across this before, should I worry and try to fix this or is it normal?

I tried googling it and all I cold find where installation issues with AHCI, and RAID config problems, but nothing to do with this problem.

I wouldn't worry to the extent of reinstalling the OS or anything, but I would be curious as to what's causing it.

I wonder if the raid controller added a header on the drive in preparation of a RAID array? I have no idea to be honest, but if it works it works.

Was there any performance decrease as a result?

If not, then don't worry about it. It's probably just a messed up naming system.

No decrease at all. I'm hoping for a bit of an increase=)
It probably is the naming scheme, sorta dumb though since I'm not using the RAID setting.

Damn Jedi those ram timings are nice !

hello thecompukid:
I have 3 pc's with Intel DG965WH motherboards and when I choose the drive setup for the controller in the bios before O.S. install there is a comment in the bios saying "AHCI" is only available with Vista operating system. I am using Vista on 2 of the pcs and used the AHCI mode on one and Raid 0 on the other. I didn't see that you mentioned the O.S. you are using but if not Vista you may not be able to use AHCI?

I am using XP, and yes it works with XP, its just that AHCI drivers are built into Vista where as in XP you would have to slipstream them into your disc or use the F6 option during XP install.

Read here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advan [...] _Interface

Since your Mobo has 2 SATA controllers built in (ICH9R and Marvell 88SE6111), are both disks connected to the ICH9R controller??
It's possible that your WD500AAKS is connected through the Marvell controller, and therefore didn't get changed to AHCI mode.

The ICH9R supports AHCI through RAID mode (or something convoluted like that, maybe both modes use the same driver) so even if you don't have a RAID set up, your drive may show up as RAID volumes.

I've also read many posts about the inablilty to switch between AHCI and IDE mode after the OS has been installed. Often the only remedy is to re-install the OS and then use the "Press F6 to install disk controller" option to install the RAID/AHCI driver.

If you've been able to switch to ACHI with an installed OS, and everything is working well, I'd say you've done everything right. 8-)

Hell Gremlin I think you hit the nail on the head there. I will check when I get home, but if I recall right I remember the ports that my cables are plugged into on the board and I just looked at the MSI website and I think they are on different controllers.

I will update this in a couple hours after I check my Home PC.

Update...

They are plugged in correctly and I uninstalled the raptor and reinstalled and still shows RAID_VOLUME_ONE

Oh well.. it works and seems a little better than IDE mode so I dont really care what it is labeled as in device manager

By "correctly" do you mean they are both attached to the ICH9R controller?? I failed to mention in my previous post, but documentation indicated the Marvell SATA controller does not support AHCI ... only the ICH9R does.

Yes, I mentioned this would probably be normal.

When you installed the AHCI/RAID driver did it also install Intel® Matrix Storage Manager (MSM) utility? If it did, you should use it to check on the status of your HDD's (AHCI or not), and it will also confirm that your WD500AAKS is connected to the Intel controller. I suspect MSM would be helpfull in determining why the two disks are labelled differently in the device manager.

I used the Matrix storage manager and it did absolutely nothing. All the options are grayed out, which I think is because it only allows you to change things if you are actually running RAID. Yes both SATA are on the ICH9R controller. Only one of the SATA ports use the Marvell and that is the external sata port that you can use on top of the case.

And since the MSM gave me no options I just uninstalled it so as not to take up any mem or processes.

I even tried reversing the ports for my 2 hard drive and they still show and run the same.


Oh well.... it might have to do with changing from IDE to AHCI mode without doing a fresh install.

Go into disk management and you will find that the drive is Dynamic instead of Basic. You may have problems with that down the road. I suggest you look into it, and decide whether you want to keep it dynamic. Here is a link that may help you in the future. HOWTO: Convert a dynamic disk back to a basic disk without data loss

Hmmm I will check when I get home, but I have never made a Dynamic Drive on my home PC.

Let me know what you find out, I'm sure it's dynamic.

I swear if changing it from IDE to AHCI and installing the Matrix software changed it to Dynamic I will flip. No where does it say that this change takes place.

Will let ya know in about 2 hours.

If windows changed one of your drives to a dynamic drive, that's just another case of "strange things happen when you switch from IDE to AHCI post-install". Wow!

If (by some off chance) Zorg happens to be wrong , could you post a screenshot of your device manager, with the "Disk drives", "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" and "SCSI and RAID controllers" trees expanded? I'm curious to see what it looks like.

Also, according to your mobo manual: (MSI P35-Platinum)
SATA
- 4 SATAII ports (ports 3~6) with 2 eSATA by ICH9R
- 1 SATA II port (port 7) by Marvell 88SE6111
So, just a small correction that the Marvell SATA port is the odd coloured blue internal connector, slightly set apart from the bock of 4 other SATA connectors. The external SATA ports on your back panel are on the ICH9R.

My eSATA on the back of the case are empty ports. My Marvell SATA port 7 is connected to the top eSATA port of the case.

The 4 SATA2 ports on the board which are 3~6 are for internal drives and I am connected to ports 5 for Raptor and 6 for WD500

I will post a screen soon as I get home.