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Help Intel x25m installation

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

Hi,

So I've searched a lot around the community but I can't find the exact answer I was looking for, so any help would be greatly appreciated. I've installed win 7 onto my intel ssd without updating the firmware or setting the ssd to AHCI mode. Since I like to do this properly, I would like to reinstall the OS AFTER updating the frimware (to get TRIM support) and setting ssd to AHCI. How do I go about performing a fresh new win 7 install without messing up the ssd?

15 REPLIES 15

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

That's fine but I've heard people saying that you should update the firmware of the SSD prior to installing the OS as it prevents some 'problems' people have been experiencing. However this way is easier as you just explained and will probabily be the way to go in my case: change registry value and set to AHCI mode then update the firmware. Right?

i don't know what problems you're referring to, but the only issue i can think of arising from updating the firmware from non-trim to trim capable without reinstalling the operating system is that there will be 'untrimmed' (i.e. invalid/dirty) data on the drive. running the manual trim procedure from the intel ssd toolbox should in theory take care of it.

merely changing from ide to ahci mode does not require a reinstallation of windows 7, just the changing of the registry value.

it's possible you may run into problems with the firmware updater finding the drive with the sata controller in ahci mode, in which case use ide mode to flash. i personally have never had any issues updating firmware in ide mode.

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

There is no need to reinstall Win 7, unless you really want to.

Modify the registry to enable AHCI.

Use the Win 7 system image to create a disk image.

Wipe the disk with hdderase.

Update the firmware

Enable AHCI in the BIOS

Restore the image

Job done

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

I was just about to modify registry to enable AHCI, when I suddenly said to myself - before I do all these steps, lets check and see if TRIM is enabled because maybe my ssd came in a batch that has already factory updated the firmware.

I logged in as administrator an ran command prompt.

In command prompt I wrote:

fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify

I got this from the PC:

DisableDeleteNotify = 0

Which, if I'm not mistaking, means TRIM IS ENABLED/TURNED ON!

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

Wrong. That only tells you that the command is being sent by the OS. (Which it does by default). It does not tell you if anything is actually being done with the signal.