Using BIOS

It depends upon the motherboard and BIOS.

In basics, just enter the BIOS and find the setting and set it to AHCI. Tell us what 'board it is and we will help more.

Q

depends on the motherboard

but usually start pc and press whichever key to enter bios

most commonly del or f1 or f2

look for the sata controller you want to attach the drive to and change it form ide to ahci--if more than one controller i usually attach to the intel one if there is one

press f10 usually to save and exit bios once you have made your changes

ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP

Are there any other changes I should make in BIOS before installing Windows 7?

Your motherboard manual should have an entire chapter on the bios, how to enter into it, and what each setting does. I recommend that you start there.

good suggestion by hawkeye22-- reading the manual certainly cant hurt

if using a sata3 drive make sure to connect to a sata3 port--ideally the 2 intel ones on that board--probably the grey ones

One other thing to keep in mind is the AHCI driver is usally disabled by default in W7, so if you enable AHCI and get a blue screen when load/install windows don't panic. You may need to boot computer from IDE mode, install w7, and then either run the microsoft "fix it" utility for AHCI if you are not comfortable playing around in the registry or do the following:

1.Exit all Windows-based programs.
2.Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
3.If you receive the User Account Control dialog box, click Continue.
4.Locate and then click one of the following registry subkeys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci


HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\IastorV

5.In the right pane, right-click Start in the Name column, and then click Modify.
6.In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
7.On the File menu, click Exit to close Registry Editor