Slow Windows Installation with AHCI Enabled – SOLVED
Posted on January 22nd, 2016
Having just upgraded a few bits and pieces on my gaming desktop (namely SSD drive, new CPU and GPU) I decided to have clean install of Windows.
Problem is, having gone from Legacy IDE to SATA/AHCI mode in the BIOS, my system was painfully slow to install and even boot. I couldn’t understand this, where was the lightening fast SSD boot times I’d heard about?
Some digging around the forums and it seems I’m not the only one experiencing this. Legacy IDE is fine; Native IDE is fine; AHCI is sloooow!
Strangely though, once you boot to Windows it’s back to full speed.
The Answer
So how did I speed up my SATA/ACHI Windows 7 installation?
Disable all floppy controllers/drives in BIOS. If it mentions the floppy or a: drive; kill it.
Yep, really that simple. I’d love to say I found this out using pure logic and reason… but I flooked it.
I’d updated the BIOS prior to installing the new CPU which had reset a lot of settings to default. In a final attempt to fix the problem I’d gone through every setting and just happened to turn floppy off again (I don’t have a floppy drive).
I’ve done some tests and it’s undoubable the cuase. Why? I have no idea.
But I am very pleased to say that installation and boot up is now lightening fast.