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Computer won't POST in AHCI mode

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    #1

    Computer won't POST in AHCI mode

    Up until a few hours ago, I had my BIOS configured so that SATA devices were running in AHCI mode.

    Then I decided to install Windows XP x64 on one of my hard disks. How stupid of me to expect to be able to do that trouble-free. Long story short is that now, I can only boot the PC up when SATA is set to IDE in the BIOS.

    If I set it to AHCI, my computer freezes during POST while it's detecting the hard disks. I literally have to unplug the hard drive I tried installing to, reset the machine, go into the BIOS and set it back to IDE mode.

    The data on the disk is fine, but it seems that there's some remnants of Win XP on there - Master Boot Record or something? All I use this drive for is data, can anyone tell me how to get my computer working the way it was before and cleanse all trace of XP 64?
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    #2
    The operating system shouldn't make a difference, its not checking that at POST time. They could be blank, full of garbage or whatever and still check out ok, it must be something else. Do the drives have any jumpers at all? you shouldn't need to set jumpers on a SATA drive unless its for 1.5/3gbit operation, but its definitely a hardware problem, the remnants or whatever of XP won't be causing it.

    Try one drive at a time or something.

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      #3
      That's what I'd assume too - but it's so strange that it just started doing this after the XP install.

      The drive is a Hitachi Deskstar 2tb, no jumpers other than what you mentioned. Unplugging it during bootup allows the machine to start. I'm mystified as to what's causing it and why it's suddenly started doing it now.
      Last edited by Lyris; 13-08-2010, 16:20.

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        #4
        Right, so I evacuated everything from the drive onto the 4 other HDDs in my system, some external disks, and a stack of BD-50s (good thing HD DVD didn't win the format war huh...)

        And the thing still wouldn't boot even after the format.

        So I downloaded a bootable CD of Super FDISK and the first thing it told me was:

        ERROR: Partition1 on harddisk3 Start Sector is 33.
        The right sector is 1.

        After that it also gave me an error about the ending sector being before where it should be. (I assume that means that if I had had the drive exactly full, I probably wouldn't have been able to pull everything off it).

        So, I wiped the MBR and after that, computer boots fine. Now I'm just reformatting it and copying everything back to it...

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          #5
          Hmm odd, glad you got it sorted though.

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            #6


            I've never seen it refer to copy times in Days rather than hours before.

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              #7
              I suggest you use at least a program able to verify copied files, 825 GBs are a lot of data and it's better to be safe than sorry. I used DirSync Pro (free, Java based) to copy around 700GB from my old NAS to the new one...it took its time, but at least I knew that all files were alright.

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                #8
                Originally posted by Lyris View Post


                I've never seen it refer to copy times in Days rather than hours before.
                Lol, try unpatched retail Vista. It can refer to copy times in years.

                No joke.

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                  #9
                  Oh, I was a big user of unpatched retail Vista and I remember the file copy and unzip comedy. Didn't see "years" myself but I can well believe it!

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