Tag Archives: storage

SOLUTION: Switch Windows 10 from RAID/IDE to AHCI operation

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PSA: You should not be attempting these fixes unless you’re a professional!  And it goes without saying, you will ALWAYS need your local admin password, recovery media, and backups of your data before fooling around with low-level storage driver configuration — or really anything else for that matter.  See the comments section below for examples of a couple of people who ran into mishaps after encountering other underlying issues or forgetting their admin password before starting the process.  PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!

It’s not uncommon to find a system on which RAID drivers have been installed and something like the Intel Rapid Storage Technology package is handling storage devices, but where an SSD might require AHCI operation for more optimal performance or configurability. In these cases, there is in fact a way to switch operation from either IDE or RAID to AHCI within Windows 10 without having to reinstall.  Here’s how.

  1. Right-click the Windows Start Menu. Choose Command Prompt (Admin).
    1. If you don’t see Command Prompt listed, it’s because you have already been updated to a later version of Windows.  If so, use this method instead to get to the Command Prompt:
      1. Click the Start Button and type cmd
      2. Right-click the result and select Run as administrator
  2. Type this command and press ENTER: bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal
    1. If this command does not work for you, try bcdedit /set safeboot minimal
  3. Restart the computer and enter BIOS Setup (the key to press varies between systems).
  4. Change the SATA Operation mode to AHCI from either IDE or RAID (again, the language varies).
  5. Save changes and exit Setup and Windows will automatically boot to Safe Mode.
  6. Right-click the Windows Start Menu once more. Choose Command Prompt (Admin).
  7. Type this command and press ENTER: bcdedit /deletevalue {current} safeboot
    1. If you had to try the alternate command above, you will likely need to do so here also: bcdedit /deletevalue safeboot
  8. Reboot once more and Windows will automatically start with AHCI drivers enabled.

That’s all there is to it!  Special thanks to Toobad here for outlining this procedure.

Update 8/2/17:  Thanks also to Aalaap Ghag for clarification of instructions for those who have already updated to the Creators Update.  Thanks also to those who wrote in about removing {current} to make this work for some users.

SOLUTION: Windows Update cannot currently check for updates, because the service is not running.

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A common problem following the replacement of a hard drive (or other low-level storage-related change, such as a storage driver or interface change) is a broken Windows Update.  I’ve been seeing this more and more frequently, in fact, on Windows 7 machines after performing drive recoveries and installing a new drive.

The exact message is:

Windows Update cannot currently check for updates, because the service is not running.  You may need to restart your computer.

While lots of solutions are offered across the internet for this problem, ultimately, it’s actually relatively simple: the storage driver is frequently to blame.  Specifically, the Intel storage driver (generally iaStor.sys), which comes as a part of the Intel Matrix Storage Manager package (renamed to Intel Rapid Storage Technology on later versions of Windows).

It’s been documented in other places as well that this is in fact the root of the problem.

Problem is, there are different versions of the Intel Matrix Storage Manager for each manufacturer — so it isn’t always possible to simply download the latest version directly from Intel and install it.

The HP version of that driver is listed above, and it will indeed work for many systems in question.  For other manufacturers, it’s best to search for the driver manually and download it directly from the PC manufacturer’s web site.  You can use search terms such as:

intel rapid storage technology driver ich10r site:dell.com vista 32-bit

To locate a suitable version for your particular situation.

If this still does not correct your issue, you may need to follow up the driver upgrade with a reset of the Windows Update repository:

  1. Open an elevated Command Prompt (Run as Administrator).
  2. Type the following commands (pressing ENTER after each one):
    1. net stop wuauserv
    2. net stop bits
  3. Open a Windows Explorer window and navigate to %WINDIR% (e.g., normally C:\Windows).
  4. Rename SoftwareDistribution to SoftwareDistribution.old.
  5. Return to the elevated Command Prompt and type these commands:
    1. net start wuauserv
    2. net start bits

This procedure has corrected the problem on all of the PCs where I’ve encountered it thus far.