Installing AHCI SATA drivers in an already installed XP?

[snark_be]

Hi,

For several months, my system was set with the SATA ports in Compatible (IDE) mode. I didn't not need the advanced AHCI features and it was simpler to install XP (no drivers needed).

Now I have bought a new enclosure and an hot-swap hard disk box and I need to enable AHCI in the BIOS (Asus P5B-E motherboard).

When I set the SATA mode to AHCI, Windows cannot boot anymore, as it's lacking the drivers.

I've googled a lot and found tons of pages explaining how to use F6 at install time to install the drivers, or how to slipstream them in the XP install CD. However I cold not find how to do it afterwards, on an already installed XP.

My XP is running perfectly for several months, no bugs, with all my apps configured, all the right drivers installed, all kind of fancy UI defined, .... I really do not want to reinstall XP.

Does anybody have an idea about this? Thanks a lot!

[jimbo11883]

I think that you can use F6 when booting your XP CD and then run a repair.

Edited December 14, 2007 by jimbo11883

[Malbojia]

What you can do is install the ahci drivers in windows while in IDE or RAID mode. Force the hard drives to use the AHCI drivers via the device manager. Reboot to the bios set it to AHCI and it might work. I've done it once before on another system.

[OPaul]

Try booting off your XP CD and choicing to do a Repair on the installation, after you've enabled AHCI in the BIOS.

[petroid]

I did this on Vista simply by installing the Intel Infs and the Intel Matrix Storage drivers then changing to AHCI in the bios.