Access AHCI NCQ SATA HDDs from XP (with intel ICH9 SB).

March 4th, 2008 by amatesi

After cloning and migrating my xp install, I needed to access the “other” HDDs connected to my new PCs SATA II (for more info, see here: xp clone & migrate (without install) ).

I have an IDE HD with XP installed, an IDE DVDRW connected on the same IDE channel, then 3 other SATA HDDs, connected to their SATA ports:

2 SATA WD Caviar RE2 500 GB.
1 SATA WD Raptor X 150 GB.

I use those disks for storage & backup purposes (& for Ubuntu of course [the Raptor]).
I needed to access these HDDs from XP, but since the MB is the standard, non-raid version, ICH9, and I’ve checked from BIOS “AHCI Mode” for SATA HDDs, I was out.

Not intel nor Gigabyte does ship a “AHCI ICH9 XP driver”, shame to them; but we can solve applying a simple hack on the official intel driver.

Get yours from intel - the actual (and the one I am rerferring to) is iata78_enu.exe, but other versions should apply nicely.

So, launch a shell and execute:

iata78_enu.exe -a
Follow the steps like you’d do for a normal install.
Open Explorer, then search for C:\ Program Files -> Intel -> Intel Matrix Storage Manager -> Driver [or Driver64 if using XP64].

There you should see some files.

Copy/paste “IaStor.sys” to C:\Windows\System32\Drivers
Open “iaahci.inf” with notepad and CTRL+H, then change “2821″ to “2923″ in all occurencies.
Search for this string: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2922&CC_0106.DeviceDesc = “Intel(R) ICH9 SATA AHCI Controller”.
Change with: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2923&CC_0106.DeviceDesc = “Intel(R) ICH9 SATA AHCI Controller”.
Close and save.

Create a new file, call it ahci.reg and put the following content inside it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 ; Der Treiber iaStor.sys muss vorher in das Verzeichnis
; Windows\system32\drivers\ kopiert werden
; Erstellt am 10.08.2007 von www.jzelectronic.de
; Für ICH9: www.intel.com
; Trademarks: Intel (www.intel.de), Microsoft (www.microsoft.de)[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_8086&dev_2923&cc_0106]
“Service”=”iaStor”
“ClassGUID”=”{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}”[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor]
“Type”=dword:00000001
“Start”=dword:00000000
“Group”=”SCSI miniport”
“ErrorControl”=dword:00000001
“ImagePath”=”system32\\drivers\\iaStor.sys”
“tag”=dword:00000019
“DisplayName”=”Intel AHCI Controller”[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Parameters]
“queuePriorityEnable”=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor\Enum]
“0″=”PCI\\VEN_8086&DEV_2923&SUBSYS_B0051458&REV_02\\3&13c0b0c5&0&FA”
“Count”=dword:00000001
“NextInstance”=dword:00000001
Execute ahci.reg and say yes.
Reboot.
As soon as you get to xp, you’ll get presented with the install hardware wizard for the misterious “PCI Device”.
Choose expert and choose the path of the previous file, C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel Matrix Storage Manager\Driver\
If you made everything correct, you’ll be asked to install an unsigned driver (blame intel for this…).
Your SATA HDDs should start to popup and you can access and use them normally.