Disabling AHCI for certain ports

[Guest]

When SATA is set to AHCI mode ("Configure SATA as [AHCI]"), is there a way to disable AHCI individually for each SATA port? I see that in "AHCI Configuration" section, there are 6 subsections (AHCI Port1 - AHCI Port6), each of which contain a corresponding SATA PortX option which can be set to either [Auto] or [Not Installed]. If I set, say, SATA Port2 to [Not Installed], does that mean "disable AHCI for this port"? Will this make the port run in IDE mode? The manual doesn't explain this.

The board is Asus Rampage Formula (X48, ICH9R).

 

[hell_storm2004]

Well that is for almost all boards. Even my P5Q Pro has the same feature. Will go home and try it.

But would like to know that is there any advantage. I have three options:
1. IDE.
2. SATA.
3. AHCI.
If yes, which one.

 

[Guest]

Your options must be wrong. SATA can run in IDE (legacy or native), AHCI or RAID mode. Please don't try anything if you don't know what you're doing. You'll probably have problems booting your existing Windows installation if you simply change IDE to AHCI mode.

For single drive setups AHCI should theoretically provide a small performance advantage over IDE provided your hardware (hard drive) is capable. RAID is for multi-drive setups. You'll need to preinstall AHCI/RAID drivers if you are going to run Windows XP (must do this before Windows installation). Newer Windows versions have them already available.

Btw, this is getting off-topic.