So my hard drive and motherboard both support AHCI, but im currently running them in IDE mode (default). Would it be worth it to install the AHCI drivers and get AHCI all setup? And im pretty sure by getting it running in AHCI mode UDMA6 would be enabled, currently only UDMA5 is.

Would there be performance increases?

Motherboard: Gb. P35-DS3R
Hard drive: Western Digital 250Gb 16mb Cache..

Thanks!

The bit advantage to AHCI is when using SATA drives, then you can take advantage of Native Command Queing (NCQ), and hot plugging for SATA drives. Generally, you must enable AHCI during the Windows install process, when prompted to hit F6 and supply a driver disk. There are a couple work-arounds that claim success, but I would hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

WARNING - If you enable AHCI in the BIOS and AHCI was not setup during the Windows install, your Windows will become corrupt and not boot, and you will be forced to do a Repair install.

Originally Posted by Digerati

The bit advantage to AHCI is when using SATA drives, then you can take advantage of Native Command Queing (NCQ), and hot plugging for SATA drives. Generally, you must enable AHCI during the Windows install process, when prompted to hit F6 and supply a driver disk. There are a couple work-arounds that claim success, but I would hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

WARNING - If you enable AHCI in the BIOS and AHCI was not setup during the Windows install, your Windows will become corrupt and not boot, and you will be forced to do a Repair install.

Well i guess im lucky. Ive done this twice. Both times it told me that my drive is corrupt. Then i just went back, told BIOS to load optimized defaults, and it worked.

But is it worth it to set up AHCI?

And would i, enable it in the BIOS, insert Vista CD, load drivers, reformat? (proper steps?)

That would depend on your drives - and how willing you are to start over. If your drives do not support NCQ, then I would not do it.

Originally Posted by Digerati

That would depend on your drives - and how willing you are to start over. If your drives do not support NCQ, then I would not do it.

How would i find out if my drive supported NCQ? Do most SATA2 drives support it??

How would i find out if my drive supported NCQ? Do most SATA2 drives support it??

The product specifications should tell you, and looking at Newegg, many do not support it.