Now that SSD has become the cost effective way to upgrade your computer's hard drive when it is time to do so, there are a few things you are going to want to take advantage of within your system's BIOS. If you are migrating your drive, which means not reinstalling windows from scratch, and you have Windows 7 or earlier installed (not windows 8 as there is a different method for this). You will want to do the following:
You start with step 1 while you are still in windows in IDE mode.
1) Run the Registry Editor (regedit.exe)
2) Navigate to Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
3) Set the "Start" value to 0 (zero)
4) Navigate to Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Pciide
5) Set the "Start" value to 0 (zero)
6) Shut down
7) Start up again, but before Windows boots go into the BIOS configuration screens and change the disk mode to "AHCI". Save the new BIOS configuration and restart so that Windows boots.
When Windows starts, it will detect the change, load new disk drivers, and do one more reboot to start up with them.
As always contact me if you have any further questions and NEVER attempt something like this if any of what I have just written has you scratching your head.. leave it for someone that does know what they are doing!
