Tag Archives: drivers

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: Mouse cursor freezes after typing in Windows 10

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Recently, a client came to me with a problem where his mouse cursor would freeze for a few seconds after pressing any key on the keyboard in Windows 10.  The delay was driving him nuts, and I empathized with him after using the computer for a short time.

In retrospect, the problem appears to be mostly limited to Synaptics drivers, and only on systems where such drivers are installed and active within Windows 10 (which also features its own “precision” touchpad driver settings).

Fortunately, the solution — while elusive — was simple:

  • Search Mouse in the searchbox at the bottom of the screen; Choose Mouse & touchpad settings from the results
  • Choose Additional mouse options
  • Click the ClickPad tab, then click Settings…
  • Click the Advanced tab
  • Set the Filter Activation Time slider all the way to 0.

touchpad(Note the slider just below the touchpad diagram)

That’s it!

SOLUTION: Windows 10 Start Menu text is unreadable / too dark

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This problem seems to affect primarily Haswell-based notebooks with Intel HD Graphics drivers in use.  I have not yet seen it affect Broadwell chipsets, but it may.

The issue is that the Start Menu text is too dark — and in fact, it becomes gradually darker — and illegible, fading into the background of the Start Menu.  While it seems likely that a Windows 10 setting (or theme) should be to blame, it actually is neither.

The problem is the Intel Graphics driver, which includes a setting that purports to implement application-specific fixes.  To correct the problem, all you have to do is disable the setting and reboot the PC:

  1. Right-click the Desktop and choose Graphics Properties…
  2. Choose 3D.
  3. Under Application Optimal Mode, click Disable.
  4. Reboot the PC.

The problem is solved!

It’s likely in the future that Intel will correct their driver optimization presets for the Windows 10 desktop windows manager / Explorer.exe, but until that day, this is the correct workaround.

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.

Solution: “Only part of a ReadProcessMemory or WriteProcessMemory request was completed”

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If you’re encountering this error, you should first know that it refers to a memory access problem of some type.  The vast majority of scenarios where it occurs are during program installs or executions from an optical drive, and that’s what most of the internet offers as a solution.   To fix those problems, the solution is well-known.

When I ran into this problem, I was unfortunately more interested in everything not related to CD/DVD media.  Instead, it was occurring each and every time I attempted to execute an application on my client’s PC.

I checked the usual suspects, including file associations, IFEO (Image File Execution Options), and plenty of other items.  But in the end, it was a likely culprit: the client had previously had Kaspersky Internet Security installed (not a bad program by any means), but in an attempt to remove it, the process apparently failed.  This left some of its drivers behind, including some filesystem filter drivers which were preventing the execution of applications until Kaspersky okayed them.  Of course, since it wasn’t installed, that never occurred, and instead this message appeared.

To fix the problem, I ran a cleanup utility from Kaspersky’s web site and checked for stray drivers using a deep system scanning utility.  Following that, everything was peachy.