[HOWTO] Boot Macs with Intel Chipset in AHCI Win7 Vista XP Linux

[Crevice]

Is the Windows7 installed alone on the SSD, or is it partitioned there along with OS X? I have some ideas about what might be happening here, based on prior experience with multiple drive bootcamp setups on my Mac Pro. The 'gpt show' output for your drives should shed some light on this.

 

Windows 7 is alone on the SSD, OS X is on another SSD (60gb).

[Crevice]

Windows 7 is alone on the SSD, OS X is on another SSD (60gb).

 

Johnsock i PM'ed you my terminal message, let me know what you think.

[jcleary21]

Hi all,

 

I have to say this is a great thread. Thanks to all of you for your hard work and comments on making this happen.

 

I've decided to upgrade my mid 2010 macbook pro i5 to an SSD. Got it installed fine and setup bootcamp with Windows 7 x64.

 

I then ran the AHCI script for the i5 and installed the Intel RST drivers. Everything went fine and the drive is operating in AHCI mode.

 

EDIT: I should probably add that I am using the latest Intel drivers 9.6. Thanks.

 

I did notice two issues and was wondering if these are known issues and is there anyway around them?

 

1. The BootCamp software in windows no longer allows me to reboot into mac os. I have to hold the alt key at boot.

 

2. When I close the lid in Windows to put the computer to sleep, it hangs every time I reopen the lid. A couple of times it blue screened.

 

I decided to uninstall the Intel drivers and then restored the MBR. After this these two issues went away.

 

I could probably live with the first one and it looks like some people are using rEFIt to solve this issue. However, I was wondering if anyone else had experienced the second issue and what they are doing to resolve/workaround it.

 

Thanks for all your help. This thread is really great and I have enjoyed reading it.

[ElArteest]

When you ran AHCI Enabler initially, was it under 10.6? It should not require anything higher than that, but it may be a build setting I need to fix.

 

Ok, finally got around to trying to get AHCI enabled on my machine. However, once I try to get the AHCI Enabler app to do it's magic I get this error:

 

"You cannot use this version of the application AHCI Enabler with this version of Mac OS X."

 

I'm running OSX version 10.5.8.

 

Any ideas?

[ElArteest]

Nevermind my last post. I used the old script and finally have AHCI enabled on my machine!

 

Thanks for the script and all the help!

[johnsock]

Hi all,

 

I have to say this is a great thread. Thanks to all of you for your hard work and comments on making this happen.

 

I've decided to upgrade my mid 2010 macbook pro i5 to an SSD. Got it installed fine and setup bootcamp with Windows 7 x64.

 

I then ran the AHCI script for the i5 and installed the Intel RST drivers. Everything went fine and the drive is operating in AHCI mode.

 

EDIT: I should probably add that I am using the latest Intel drivers 9.6. Thanks.

 

I did notice two issues and was wondering if these are known issues and is there anyway around them?

 

1. The BootCamp software in windows no longer allows me to reboot into mac os. I have to hold the alt key at boot.

 

2. When I close the lid in Windows to put the computer to sleep, it hangs every time I reopen the lid. A couple of times it blue screened.

 

I decided to uninstall the Intel drivers and then restored the MBR. After this these two issues went away.

 

I could probably live with the first one and it looks like some people are using rEFIt to solve this issue. However, I was wondering if anyone else had experienced the second issue and what they are doing to resolve/workaround it.

 

Thanks for all your help. This thread is really great and I have enjoyed reading it.

 

I have noticed the same problem when trying to use the BootCamp control panel to restart the computer. I don't think it can be helped without a rewrite from Apple, and I don't expect that what we are doing here is exactly a supported configuration. I always use the option-key method anyway.

 

I have no data on the sleep issue you are seeing. I have never tried to put a Mac to sleep while running Windows, but maybe someone else here has tried it.

 

Nevermind my last post. I used the old script and finally have AHCI enabled on my machine!

 

Thanks for the script and all the help!

 

Glad you were able to get everything working. The AHCI Enabler program requires OS X 10.6 or higher. I'll look into building the next update so that it will work with 10.5.

[jcleary21]

I have noticed the same problem when trying to use the BootCamp control panel to restart the computer. I don't think it can be helped without a rewrite from Apple, and I don't expect that what we are doing here is exactly a supported configuration. I always use the option-key method anyway.

 

Thanks. I was just curious if there was a way around it. It is no big deal. the option-key works just fine.

 

I have no data on the sleep issue you are seeing. I have never tried to put a Mac to sleep while running Windows, but maybe someone else here has tried it.

 

I did find some interesting information regarding this problem. I have an SSD with the Sandforce 1222 controller. According to a post on the manufacturers forum this is a know issue with this controller and the Intel 9.6 RST drivers. It looks like there is a fix in the works which will be in a future firmware update. For now the suggested workaround is to disable sleep. I would post the link to the forum post, but I'm not sure if that is against the rules.

 

Thanks for your reply!

[cesarvog]

The BootCamp Assistant only resizes and partitions the drive and then sets the boot drive to your installation disc, if desired. It does not have any effect on BIOS compatibility layer that gets loaded. The Mac always boots using EFI. The EFI boot loader will load the BIOS compatibility layer any time it is instructed to boot a Windows partition. Since the BOIS compatibility layer never puts the chipset into AHCI mode, you will always initially boot Windows in legacy mode. The 'Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller' driver that you can force install is there for compatibility purposes and operates solely in legacy mode. The chipset can't be placed in AHCI mode once the OS has booted. That's why we are doing it in the MBR code here. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out a way to configure the MCP79 chipset registers like we can for the Intel ones.

I hope this answers some of your questions, and let me know if you need more info.

 

CK

Thanks johnsock for your work on enabling AHCI mode on Mac hardware and reply to my post. I hope someone will eventually find a way to configure the MCP79/89 chipset registers, so Macbook Pro and Mac Mini users can benefit from increased performance on their systems while running Windows.

 

On a side note, is there a way to keep rEFIt from loading the BIOS compatibility layer, since Windows 7 x64 should be able to boot from EFI?

 

Best regards,

Cesar

[johnsock]

Thanks johnsock for your work on enabling AHCI mode on Mac hardware and reply to my post. I hope someone will eventually find a way to configure the MCP79/89 chipset registers, so Macbook Pro and Mac Mini users can benefit from increased performance on their systems while running Windows.

 

On a side note, is there a way to keep rEFIt from loading the BIOS compatibility layer, since Windows 7 x64 should be able to boot from EFI?

 

Best regards,

Cesar

 

I've not tried doing this, but it would be interesting to see what happens when loading the \EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI file on the Windows 7 disc directly from within rEFIt. I don't know if the BIOS compatibility layer would get loaded or not. If you can, try that out and let us know what happens.

 

 

CK

[cesarvog]

I've not tried doing this, but it would be interesting to see what happens when loading the \EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI file on the Windows 7 disc directly from within rEFIt. I don't know if the BIOS compatibility layer would get loaded or not. If you can, try that out and let us know what happens.

 

 

CK

Hi,

 

Thanks for your reply. A funny thing happens if you have rEFIt installed and press ALT on your keyboard while you have the Windows 7 x64 setup disk inserted in the slot: The regular boot camp boot loader loads and present 3 different options, from left to right: the traditional Mac OS X icon, a CD-ROM icon (which I presume to be the tradicional BIOS based setup), and a second CD-ROM icon - that specifically says EFI based setup. I tried this third option and what came next was even more surprising: After a few seconds, several new options appeared on the rEFIt menu. The second icon from left to right would supposedly try to load the \EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI file. So I chose that option and got the Press any key to boot from DVD... at the top of the black screen. I pressed space and Windows setup started to load from the DVD. After a few seconds on the Windows is loading files screen, the gauge eventually completed and a cursor appeared on the top left. Then nothing else happend until I pressed Escape a few times. The computer then simply restarted....

So I figure I was able to boot from EFI, but since it's 1.1 Windows could not go on loading it's files.

I was hoping to try the same thing with the help of Tianocore EFI_DUET (which would provide EFI 2.x), but unfortunately was so incompetent as to not be able to generate a working USB flash disk to boot EFI_DUET from...

What do you think? Sorry for not giving exact messages above, as I'm away at work and tried that at home.

Best regards

 

C

[johnsock]

Hi,

 

Thanks for your reply. A funny thing happens if you have rEFIt installed and press ALT on your keyboard while you have the Windows 7 x64 setup disk inserted in the slot: The regular boot camp boot loader loads and present 3 different options, from left to right: the traditional Mac OS X icon, a CD-ROM icon (which I presume to be the tradicional BIOS based setup), and a second CD-ROM icon - that specifically says EFI based setup. I tried this third option and what came next was even more surprising: After a few seconds, several new options appeared on the rEFIt menu. The second icon from left to right would supposedly try to load the \EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI file. So I chose that option and got the Press any key to boot from DVD... at the top of the black screen. I pressed space and Windows setup started to load from the DVD. After a few seconds on the Windows is loading files screen, the gauge eventually completed and a cursor appeared on the top left. Then nothing else happend until I pressed Escape a few times. The computer then simply restarted....

So I figure I was able to boot from EFI, but since it's 1.1 Windows could not go on loading it's files.

I was hoping to try the same thing with the help of Tianocore EFI_DUET (which would provide EFI 2.x), but unfortunately was so incompetent as to not be able to generate a working USB flash disk to boot EFI_DUET from...

What do you think? Sorry for not giving exact messages above, as I'm away at work and tried that at home.

Best regards

 

C

 

I forgot about the EFI 2.x problem... I think if you were able to get DUET working it would be booting after the BIOS layer and so would not help here, but I could be wrong. I suspect we are SOL on EFI 2.x for now, meaning we have to boot Windows the old-fashioned way.

[cesarvog]

I forgot about the EFI 2.x problem... I think if you were able to get DUET working it would be booting after the BIOS layer and so would not help here, but I could be wrong. I suspect we are SOL on EFI 2.x for now, meaning we have to boot Windows the old-fashioned way.

Yeah, it's a shame Apple would not update the EFI layer on it's computers to UEFI 2.0. Anyway, thanks for your help and keep up the good work. I'm also hoping that you or one of the other fine members here find a way to set registers for the MCP/79 as well. I will keep reading as much as possible about the subject, hoping I can connect different bits&pieces to find a working solution.

 

C

[em606]

Hi there,

 

I've got a Macbook Pro (specs included below) and it's the 'mid 2009' model that I've read (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1846OO) won't support a Vista 64 bit install. I've got a copy of Vista Ultimate (64 bit) that I want to install on this machine - I've got too many games that won't run in Windows 7 or the 32 bit version of Vista to want to give up!

 

Will this fix work on my machine? I can follow instructions but I don't really understand what the fix is doing and don't want to completely kill my computer!

 

Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,4

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

Processor Speed: 2.53 GHz

Number Of Processors: 1

Total Number Of Cores: 2

L2 Cache: 3 MB

Memory: 4 GB

Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

Boot ROM Version: MBP53.00AC.B03

 

Thanks for any help.

[johnsock]

Hi there,

 

I've got a Macbook Pro (specs included below) and it's the 'mid 2009' model that I've read (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1846OO) won't support a Vista 64 bit install. I've got a copy of Vista Ultimate (64 bit) that I want to install on this machine - I've got too many games that won't run in Windows 7 or the 32 bit version of Vista to want to give up!

 

Will this fix work on my machine? I can follow instructions but I don't really understand what the fix is doing and don't want to completely kill my computer!

 

Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,4

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

Processor Speed: 2.53 GHz

Number Of Processors: 1

Total Number Of Cores: 2

L2 Cache: 3 MB

Memory: 4 GB

Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

Boot ROM Version: MBP53.00AC.B03

 

Thanks for any help.

 

This fix will not work on your machine because you have the MCP79 chipset, but all is not lost for you. This fix only enables the AHCI mode while in Windows and does not prevent or enable installing any specific version of Windows on your Mac. I was not able to pull up the link you posted, but I can tell you that I have definitely installed Vista 64 on a 'Mid 2009' MacBook Pro in the past. I'm not sure what version of the BootCamp drivers are required for installing Vista 64, but I know they exist. You may have to pick up a Snow Leopard disc if your computer did not ship with one in order to get the drivers (unless they can be downloaded somewhere, back me up on this someone).

At any rate, if you use the BootCamp assistant to install Vista 64 and just follow the instructions it will be very difficult to mess up anything on your computer. You will not be able to have AHCI mode while in Windows, but this is of little significance unless you use a fast SSD.

Let me know if you need more info.

 

CK

[Sasha_yu]

Hi All,

 

First I want to thank everyone involved into this solution.

 

I have one question, so I just need someone's opinion

(looks that Johnsock knows a lot of things about AHCI).

 

Let's get to the point:

I'm expectind new Mac Pro in about a month (well, in a country

I'm living, you must wait almost 2 month for BTO configuration).

 

I will have 2 hard drives, and my plan is to keep Mac OS

on first one, and fully reformat second one and install XP x64.

I know the story about drivers, but I will give it a try, so please

don't turn this into discussion about XP x64 and better alternatives.

I like it, I'm using it every day at work, I have a legal version,

so I don't see any reason why not to try.

 

So, my question is now obvious:

Can someone tell me is there any chance that I can make AHCI

working on Mac Pro 2010 with XP x64 on a separate (full) drive?

Even a good guess is fine, or some directions.

Just keep in mind that I'm not an expert, but I consider my knoledge

about Windows more than solid.

 

Thank you all, cheers!

[johnsock]

Hi All,

 

First I want to thank everyone involved into this solution.

 

I have one question, so I just need someone's opinion

(looks that Johnsock knows a lot of things about AHCI).

 

Let's get to the point:

I'm expectind new Mac Pro in about a month (well, in a country

I'm living, you must wait almost 2 month for BTO configuration).

 

I will have 2 hard drives, and my plan is to keep Mac OS

on first one, and fully reformat second one and install XP x64.

I know the story about drivers, but I will give it a try, so please

don't turn this into discussion about XP x64 and better alternatives.

I like it, I'm using it every day at work, I have a legal version,

so I don't see any reason why not to try.

 

So, my question is now obvious:

Can someone tell me is there any chance that I can make AHCI

working on Mac Pro 2010 with XP x64 on a separate (full) drive?

Even a good guess is fine, or some directions.

Just keep in mind that I'm not an expert, but I consider my knoledge

about Windows more than solid.

 

Thank you all, cheers!

 

You shouldn't have any problems getting your new Mac Pro into AHCI mode from a hardware standpoint. Just use the AHCI Enabler program and it will take care of modifying your MBR to enable AHCI mode. The thing I can't say for sure is if you will be able to get XP64 working with the proper drivers needed to take advantage of AHCI. I have never tried that configuration, but I have heard of others getting AHCI working in XP64 on other computers so it should be possible on the Mac Pro.

 

Let us know when you get the computer and we will see how it works. Feel free to ask here if you run into any problems!

[Sasha_yu]

You shouldn't have any problems getting your new Mac Pro into AHCI mode from a hardware standpoint. Just use the AHCI Enabler program and it will take care of modifying your MBR to enable AHCI mode. The thing I can't say for sure is if you will be able to get XP64 working with the proper drivers needed to take advantage of AHCI. I have never tried that configuration, but I have heard of others getting AHCI working in XP64 on other computers so it should be possible on the Mac Pro.

 

Let us know when you get the computer and we will see how it works. Feel free to ask here if you run into any problems!

 

Thank you for yout answer, Johnsock.

I will write here my experience for sure, but it will not be soon.

Just two more things:

1. What do you think, is it better for me to integrate SATA drivers with nLite, and install that version, or it doesn't matter (standard XP x64 is fine)?

2. In case I can't make AHCI working, will blu-ray playback be fine? I'm asking this because my plan is (later) to buy blu-ray drive from MSI, and as you probably know, I can't watch it on Mac, only on Windows via Bootcamp.

 

Cheers!

[johnsock]

Thank you for yout answer, Johnsock.

I will write here my experience for sure, but it will not be soon.

Just two more things:

1. What do you think, is it better for me to integrate SATA drivers with nLite, and install that version, or it doesn't matter (standard XP x64 is fine)?

2. In case I can't make AHCI working, will blu-ray playback be fine? I'm asking this because my plan is (later) to buy blu-ray drive from MSI, and as you probably know, I can't watch it on Mac, only on Windows via Bootcamp.

 

Cheers!

 

I have always preferred integrating drivers into the install disc (like nLite) when using XP, but I have not tried it on a Mac using AHCI Enabler. I think you should be able to make that work and I'm interested to hear how it goes when you get your Mac Pro.

 

As far as Blu Ray goes, I think you have to be in AHCI mode for that to work. I've never tried it, unfortunately. I recommend getting AHCI working first, then get the Blu Ray drive. If you can't get XP64 into AHCI mode you may have to settle for Vista or 7.

[on3eighteen]

I've got a 15" MacBook Pro, mid 2009 (MacBookPro5,3) with the Nvidia MCP79. Just wanted to report success using the following method:

 

...

 

Note: only do this with a MCP79! Normally, forcing a driver on hardware it doesn't expect is dangerous. However, in this case, it appears to be safe. I've found that Linux can use AHCI on MCP79 in legacy IDE mode, and this is why: http://fixunix.com/kernel/258426-patch-ahc...ler-ahci-c.html

 

I have the Mid 2009 MBP too but cannot find out how to verify my chipset is MCP79. I assume since we both have the same model # it'd be the same but I wanted to be certain. Where in my Device Manager should I look? And were you able to install the Intel Rapid Storage Tech drivers after you got Windows to boot into ACHI mode?

 

Any info is great info!

[johnsock]

I have the Mid 2009 MBP too but cannot find out how to verify my chipset is MCP79. I assume since we both have the same model # it'd be the same but I wanted to be certain. Where in my Device Manager should I look? And were you able to install the Intel Rapid Storage Tech drivers after you got Windows to boot into ACHI mode?

 

Any info is great info!

 

If you are operating in legacy mode, you are NOT operating in AHCI mode. You can have only one or the other. Just because you add device ID's to a driver INF file doesn't mean that you have changed the mode of operation of the controller. This linux kernel patch just allows the driver to recognize a controller that is running in legacy mode so that one driver can be used for both AHCI mode and legacy mode.

Intel RST is made for Intel chipsets that are running in AHCI mode. The install will fail unless both of these conditions are met (Intel chipset & AHCI mode).

The easiest way to tell what chipset you have is to look in System Profiler under Serial ATA. It will tell you what type of chipset is being used.

As of now the only way to boot an MCP79 chipset Mac in AHCI mode is by booting OS X.

[on3eighteen]

I followed the steps from Zr40 for those w/ a mid-2009 MacBook Pro & the NVidia MCP79 chipset. Indeed the Microsoft IDE driver was replaced w/ the Microsoft Standard ACHI SATA! I noticed significant read performance improvement which was got in line w/ the specs of 275Mbps. However, the write performance remaining the same (~180Mbps) both before & after the change. The good news is that read performance, at least to me, is more important but I wanted to ask the group if there is a way to improve write performance.

 

Attached is are 2 screenshots of the before & after the registry tweak along w/ the Device Manager tweak.

 

 

 

[bluenote98]

First I want to thank everyone involved in this process. Here is my problem. I have a 15" MBP 2010 with Core i7 and I first tried the 1.0 script and now understand why it didn't work. I did a repair of my Windows 7 install because I didn't know that I could use the restore of the MBR. I am now trying to use the APP or version 1.1 of the script and each time I try it says that my MBR has already been modified. I tried restoring my backup.mbr from version 1.0 of the script and it failed and had to run a repair on my windows 7 install to get my MBR back. Do you have any advice for me to get this process to work?

 

Thanks

[ludacrisvp]

<br />Hi All,<br /><br />First I want to thank everyone involved into this solution.<br /><br />I have one question, so I just need someone's opinion<br />(looks that Johnsock knows a lot of things about AHCI).<br /><br />Let's get to the point:<br />I'm expectind new Mac Pro in about a month (well, in a country<br />I'm living, you must wait almost 2 month for BTO configuration).<br /><br />I will have 2 hard drives, and my plan is to keep Mac OS<br />on first one, and fully reformat second one and install <b>XP x64</b>.<br />I know the story about drivers, but I will give it a try, so please<br />don't turn this into discussion about XP x64 and better alternatives.<br />I like it, I'm using it every day at work, I have a legal version,<br />so I don't see any reason why not to try.<br /><br />So, my question is now obvious:<br />Can someone tell me is there any chance that I can make AHCI<br />working on Mac Pro 2010 with XP x64 on a separate (full) drive?<br />Even a good guess is fine, or some directions.<br />Just keep in mind that I'm not an expert, but I consider my knoledge<br />about Windows more than solid.<br /><br />Thank you all, cheers!<br />

<br /><br /><br />

 

I have had xp x64 running properly on my 08 Mac pro and yes drivers do suck but that's just a windows thing that we are all used to dealing with.

So it will be difficult for you but it should work fine in the end.

[exp13579]

Thanks for the solution, I've successfully enabled ACHI mode in my old MBP 3.1.

 

However, I met another question when I check my HDD in Intel Rapid Storage. It told me that my HDD was working under SATA I instead of SATA II as both Intel ICH8-M and my Fujitsu HDD supposed to support.

 

Can anyone tell me how to enable the full speed SATA II mode on my MBP 3.1?

[zepplin81]

Hello - amazing work guys.

 

I am expecting a new 17'' MBP i5 within the next week, along with a vertex 2e. On the vertex 2 i will have Snow leopard and bootcamped win7 64bit (the ssd will be replacing the HDD, not the optical drive)

 

Am i correct in assuming that with the 'AHCI enabler' program, i will be modifying the disk0s3(.Bootcamp) volume only?

Also, Is this done immediately after running the bootcamp assistant, and prior to rebooting with the windows7 cd?

 

Thanks for all the work put into this, cheers!