FYI: AHCI and NCQ on Vista (hard drive stuff)

AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface)
NCQ ( Native Command Queuing) (puts commands to HD in order)

Got a new drive (Seagate ST3 750 330 AS), and thought I'd try this NCQ
stuff.

Set BIOS to AHCI and AHCI BIOS.
The BIOS did pick up all my SATA drives on the AHCI BIOS.
However, Vista started up (progress bar) but about 5-10 secs later, a BSOD
flashed and it re-booted.

I looked up AHCI on MSKB and found thisthat is, I reset BIOS to IDE,
re-booted, and then looked it up)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976/en-us
I could sorta remember that BSOD flashing by as a STOP, so I tried it .

Voila - reboot after setting BIOS to AHCI and AHCI BIOS on, Vista booted up
as normal and then went into a long sequence of now finding the correct
AHCI controller drivers and applying them - auto - takes 5-10 minutes. (I
have 6 SATA ports) reboot and all is well.

Sisoft Sandra and HD Tune both now say that NCQ is there. For some Nvidia
chipsets, the NCQ checkbox apparently appears in the Device properties, but
it does not on my Intel ICH9R.

So, contrary to what I was finding on the web, you CAN set up AHCI and NCQ
AFTER you have installed Vista - it doesn't take a re-install. And, yes, I
had to re-activate my OEM Vista, Though, odly, it waited a day to tell me
that I had a day to do it. I used Acronis TI 11 to clone my Hitachi 160gb
to the new drive (10 min or so), power off, unplug the Hitachi and test the
new drive for a bit.

Pretty easy, all in all, but only when I thought to check MSKB for AHCI.

--
Kris
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