Fernando and the forum team,
Firstly, thank you for your work on legacy NVidia products.
Second, I am not a techie and need some help.
I understand that I need AHCI to boot from SSD? Is that correct?
I have purchased a Sandisk Ultra II SSD.
I do not have a choice to change to AHCI in BIOS (I have the latest version of the BIOS for the mobo 1406)
In Device Manager I do not see any Chipsets and therefore do not know how to update.
My system is running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit on a WD Green HDD. Before I upgrade to Windows 10 I would like to migrate over to SSD and boot from it.
Please let me know what other information you require to assist me.
Has anyone had the same problem and resolved it. There is a suggestion that I buy SATA3 controller card and use the spare PCIE x16 port I have.
Thank you for your assistance.
meh8a
@meh8a :
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
No, you can boot off an SSD, which is running in IDE or RAID mode as well.
Your nForce 650i (MCP55) chipset mainboard doesn’t support AHCI at all.
You can find the various nForce chipset devices within different sections of the Device Manager:
1. The "NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller" will be listed within the "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" section, but may have another name (example: "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller").
2. Within the "Network adapters" section you will find the "NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller".
3. The nForce HDAudio Controller (original name: "NVIDIA High Definition Audio") should be listed within the "Sound, Video and Game Controllers" section.
4. Other NVIDIA nForce chipset devices (SMBus, SMU etc.) should be found within the "System Devices" section of the Devce Manager.
Why do you want to clutter your brandnew SSD with a lot of garbage?
This is what I recommend to do:
1. Upgrade your Win7 x64 Ultimate to Win10 x64 Pro by using your currently used HDD.
2. Make sure, that the upgraded OS has been activated by Microsoft.
3. Download the latest version of Windows 10 x64 Professional supporting your language by using Microsoft’s MediaCreationTool.
4. Download the tool named Rufus and let it create a bootable USB Flash Drive by using the ISO file you have downloaded. Choose the "MBR partition scheme for BIOS and UEFI" as partition scheme.
5. Connect your new SSD to the first NVIDIA nForce SATA port and unplug all other storage devices (HDDs and Optical Drives).
6. Boot off the USB Flash Drive, which contains the Win10 x64 Pro image, and point to the SSD as target disk drive for the OS.
7. Enjoy a "clean" Windows 10. It will be activated automaticly once the OS installation has been completed and you have entered your Microsoft account details (eMail and Password).
8. Reconnect all your other storage devices (HDDs and Optical Drives) and reboot.
9. After having done a backup of all your personal data (exclusive the Win7 x64 own ones) you can do a quick format of your currently used HDD system drive.
According to my knowledge you will not run into any problem during the OS upgrade and the later "clean" OS installation.
What may happen is, that the "clean" installed Win10 does not have appropriate drivers for all nForce devices.
Solution:
1. Run the Device Manager and look for yellow flagged devices.
2. If you find any, post the name and the HardwareIDs of the device with a "missing driver" flag (right click onto the device > "Properties" > "Details" > "Property" > "HardwareIDs").
That would be a good idea, if you want a better SSD performance.
Good luck!
Dieter (alias Fernado)
Fernando, Many thanks for the prompt response and appreciate the advice.
The actions I have taken after your advice:
- ordered SATA 3 6Gbps controller card, should arrive in two days.
- fitted SSD in computer
- Downloaded Rufus and bought USB Flash drive, will download and prepare Win 10 ISO bootable USB tomorrow.
I attach a word document with info on the controllers and drivers, I appreciate your advice on whether I should load any drivers that you recommend, before I go from Win 7 to Windows 10, and for Windows 10 too.
I have seen something about switching to dual SLI on the motherboard to use my spare PCIE x16 (for the SATA3 controller I have ordered - do I need to anything else before fitting the new controller card? In the motherboard manual I have found how to switch from Single to Dual SLI.
Once again appreciate your help.
Best regards,
meh8a
You can download, unzip and store somewhere the 64bit variants of my "Latest nForce Driverpacks" and "Special nForce RAID Driverpacks", which I am offering >here<, just for the case, that Windows 10 x64 doesn’t find a suitable driver for an nForce chipset device (not even via Windows Update), but I do not recommend to install any of them completely.
Reason: Win10 may have better in-box drivers for your nForce devices than NVIDIA has ever released (they stopped the development of the nForce drivers already in 2009/2010).
Fernando,
Thanks I will download and unzip on another flash drive.
Do you have any thoughts and suggestions on how I should set up the new sata 3 controller card on this motherboard?
I also did not find SMBus, etc in System Devices.
Which of the drivers affect the PCIEx1 and x16 slots, if any?
Thanks and best regards,
meh8a
The Device Manager may show the SMBus device as "NVIDIA nForce PCI System Management".
According to the above mentioned name I suspect, that it is the SMBus driver.
Fernando,
Thank you for your advice.
I received the SATA 3 6 Gbs controller card yesterday, connected it to the black PCIE x16 and on restart the system found the drivers and loaded it (Standard SATA AHCI Controller).
Power off and connected the SSD to the new controller card, rebooted - BIOS did not find the SSD. Windows found it. I disconnected the HDD and then custom installed Windows 10. Everything has gone well, booted from SSD. This is also the case when I have reconnected the HDD. Windows 10 updates all done.
I can now also boot from SSD on the SATA 1 port on Motherboard.I have checked the speeds using Crystal Disk Mark. I am getting just under double speed connected to the SATA 3 controller compared to connected to Motherboard SATA port. However this 200 Mbs rather than the 500 Mbs. Is there anything else I need to do?
Thank you once again and best regards,
meh8a
I have no additional tips for you.
Enjoy your new SSD and its performance!