Intel SSD, ACHI/IDE?

[GeneralTK]

Hi, I just installed my new Intel 320 120gb SSD. I have a Asus M4a78T-E motherboard with a AMD Phenom II 960 CPU.
I've tried to follow a guide to maximize SSD performance (this one, and I'm struggling with TRIM/ACHI. In elevated CMD I entered the command to check if I had TRIM enabled, and it was: "DisableDeleteNotify = 0".

I think I've gotten very confused by reading forum posts about it, as the impression I'm getting is that TRIM can only be run in ACHI, and not IDE which is what I got right now. I tried to change it in the BIOS, but to do so I had to change from IDE to ACHI on 4 of my SATA connected drives. It was a case of "IDE to ACHI on SATA 1-4". This caused Windows to crash on startup, and I reverted the change. I currently have 3 HDDs, a SSD and a DVD+RW connected by SATA.

Do I need to worry about not having ACHI? Do I need Intel drivers, if so - which?

Thanks.

 

[sminlal]

Ideally you should have set the BIOS to AHCI mode BEFORE installing Windows. Now that it's already installed switching the mode causes it to crash because it doesn't have the correct drivers loaded. But there is a way to switch modes without having to reinstall Windows:

1) Run the Registry Editor (regedit.exe)
2) Navigate to Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
3) Set the "Start" value to 0 (zero)
4) Navigate to Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Pciide
5) Set the "Start" value to 0 (zero)
6) Shut down
7) Start up again, but before Windows boots go into the BIOS configuration screens and change the disk mode to "AHCI". Save the new BIOS configuration and restart so that Windows boots.

When Windows starts, it will detect the change, load new disk drivers, and do one more reboot to start up with them.

 

[GeneralTK]

That seemed to work quite well, all went exactly as you said it would. So is that all then? It's "ready, set, go" for my SSD?

 

[JohnnyLucky]

That's about it to get started. If you wanted to you could also optimize Windows and the ssd for a little bit better performance. Here is a link to the optimization guides:

http://thessdreview.com/category/ssd-guides/optimization-guides/

Have Fun!

 

[GeneralTK]

Best answer selected by GeneralTK.