Changing from RAID to AHCI

@mmmmmmmenno I haven't gone back in and changed the registry listing from 0 to 3 again as my boot times are extremely fast now. I too can be on a browser within 15 seconds after booting. The big thing I noticed was if I take the windows update to the newer AMD SATA driver it actually slows the machine down to SATA II speeds whereas rolling the IDE/ATA back to the Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller I once again get SATA III speeds and is recognised by the Samsung Optimizer as SATA III whereas before it wasn't and correspondingly gave slower read&write speeds. Those drivers didn't slow boots times just the R&W speeds.

 If I understand what you are saying in your post, if I go back and change; msahci,atapi,amdsata,nvstor,nvraid,iastor the whole bunch back to 3 in the registry settings, is that right? Wouldn't this defeat the AHCI BIOS settings? Or booting to AHCI mode then resetting the registry back to 3 in modify rather than 0. I'm a little fuzzy on absorbing what you are saying about ''changing startup to 3''. I also have an AMD gfx that likes to update chipset drivers but always forgo that selection and go with the gfx update only

For AMD chipset owners;

If you install AMD Catalyst (chipset) drivers,you will find in your registry;

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\amd_sata

and

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\amd_xata

These driver packages also update the SATA/AHCI driver, so that's where the entries come from.

This means you can disable all other possible boot-method entries,and shave a bunch of seconds off your boot time.

Yes,i'm talking about changing startup to 3 for msahci,atapi,amdsata,nvstor,nvraid,iastor...the whole bunch.

I'm now on my desktop after 13 seconds after the startup initiation screen!

The unneeded methods are not being polled anymore i guess!

This probably also works for any other kind of chipset, as long as you know which entries you have to keep enabled!

p.s.

Always make a restore point before tinkering with these!

I did this and rolled back my AMD SATA driver to Windows ATA and bingo I went from SATA II speeds on my Samsung SSD to SATA III. Samsung Magician was giving me fits trying to 'Optimize'. Why I wasn't seeing SATA III, even HP's gurus didn't know (or they wouldn't let on), they told me I would have to get another MotherBoard, which they of course said would void my warranty., The MB was configured for RAIDXpert which uses an AMD SATA driver that only reaches SATA II speeds; going into Device Manager and rolling back the IDE/ATA Controllers (after following all the registry settings and BIOS changes) then rebooting, I now have the correct speeds. Windows Update will try to give you (if you have AMD Controllers) a newer AMD SATA driver.  I did try it, thinking it would be okay, but what it did was return my controllers to the lower speeds, so FYI do not apply this update and just stay with the stock controller. This information only pertains to HP models with stock (OEM) AMD RAIDXpert configurations, also note I had to change more than two registry files, there is an earlier post that lists:

REG ADD HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\msahci /v Start /d 0 /f /t REG_DWORD

REG ADD HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi /v Start /d 0 /f /t REG_DWORD

REG ADD HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\amdsata /v Start /d 0 /f /t REG_DWORD

REG ADD HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvstor /v Start /d 0 /f /t REG_DWORD

REG ADD HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvraid /v Start /d 0 /f /t REG_DWORD

REG ADD HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor /v Start /d 0 /f /t REG_DWORD

Change the above settings then boot to BIOS  then change the RAIDXpert to AHCI  reboot  then goto Device Manager drill down to the controllers for your original setup and roll it back in Properties and go with the Standard ACHI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller which in my case allowed SATA III.

Thank you for posting this!  4 years later and your post is still helping IT peeps save time and money.  I needed to switch from RAID to AHCI on an Optiplex 990 to get maximum performance out of an SSD and this was right on the money!

BK