I have a “development” machine that I use for a variety of video applications using all of the above OS’s. All 4 drives are Velociraptor 300GB 10,000 rpm sata drives, each drive is totally isolated from the other by a physical hard drive switch. I use a WD 2TB 7200 rpm sata drive formatted exFAT for transferring files between OS’s when I can. I have everything working between all 4 OS’s, 5.1 onboard sound, dual Nvidia GTX 660 2GB video cards, 3, 24" 1080P ASUS monitors, Pinnacle analog video capture card in XP 32 bit, M-Audio analog Omni-I/O Delta 66 audio capture system also in XP.
System is “old school” but meets my needs and budget! P5Q-E, Xeon Quad Core X5460 @ 4.2 ghz, 16 gb 1066 DDR2, dual GTX 660 2gb video cards, on-board 5.1 sound, etc.
Here is the issue, I’m tired of having to go into the BIOS and having to switch back and forth between IDE & AHCI, is there away around this?
Regards and thanks in advance for any and all advice.
Jay F.
Wisconsin USA
EDIT by Fernando: Title shortened
@ jayfontaine1:
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
If I understand your post correctly, you have already all 4 Operating Systems running, but just missing the AHCI mode, when you are booting into Windows XP.
Creating a multi-boot system is generally possible, but you should start with the installation of the oldest OS and that is Windows XP. Here< is a guide how to get Windows XP installed onto an Intel Chipset system running in AHCI mode.
The problem will be, that the boot files of the other Operating Systems will be overwritten by the XP Setup with the result, that you will not be able to boot into the other Operating Systems thereafter.
You may be able to solve your problem by switching to AHCI mode from within a running Windows XP according >this< guide, but this method is more risky than a fresh XP installation in AHCI mode.
If you want to avoid a fresh XP installation, I recommend to do the following:
1. Download the “classical” 32bit Intel RST AHCI & RAID driver v11.2.0.1006 WHQL. You can find the link >here<. Unzip the files onto a floppy drive.
2. Boot into Windows XP in IDE mode, run the Device Manager and expand the section “IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers”.
3. Right click onto the listed Intel SATA Controller, which manages the HDD, where XP is installed.
4. Choose the options “Browse my Computer…” > “Let me pick …” > “Have Disk”.
5. Navigate to the Floppy drive, choose the file named iaAHCI.inf and press “OK”. You will get a list of different Intel SATA Controllers.
6. Since your motherboard has an Intel ICH10R Southbridge, you have to choose the “Intel(R) ICH10R SATA AHCI Controller”.
7. Ignore all warnings you get and continue the installation.
8. After having finished the driver installation (the new driver will be active after the next reboot), chose the offered “Reboot” option.
9. Most important: During the reboot you have to enter the BIOS and to set the Intel SATA Controller to “AHCI”.
10. Save the new BIOS setting and reboot.
11. If you are lucky: Enjoy Windows XP in AHCI mode.
Good luck!
Dieter (alias Fernando)