Can I disable AHCI on Vaio Z BIOS ?

Now I update my BIOS to R4043M3 and can't find menu to disable AHCI in this BIOS version.

 

You cannot do it unless you enable advanced options in the BIOS.

http://feature-enable.blogspot.com/2009/07/enable-vt-on-insydeh2o-based-sony-vaio.html

Unfortunately, to do this is a bit harder with R4043M3 BIOS as it is impossible to boot from EFI files on USB stick if there is any internal drive connected.

For now, you would need to:

a) Open the laptop (might void warranty) and temporarily disconnect internal drives (SATA connectors are left and right of the keyboard connector)

b) When no internal drives are connected (except external USB stick), Boot Manager will finally appear - select "Boot from File" and boot the BOOTX64.EFI from the website link mentioned above

c) Change the VSS register 0x25A to 0x1 with the procedure described in the page linked above

d) Reboot

After that procedure, you will have "Advanced" menus and options in the BIOS - and you can manually configure the IDE controller (you can configure it to be either AHCI, IDE or RAID)

It is a bit complicated - at least, until someone figures out how to get to the boot manager in R4043M3 and boot from EFI file

 

@psyq321:

Thank you! I didn't know it is the same offset to enable advanced menus even in R4043M3!

 

Has anybody done this already succesfully?

Then everybody else can have the advanced menu. He needs only to dump his "bios" and everybody who flashes the dumped image has the advanced menu.

TDO

 

I did - yesterday, and it works.

Next thing I'm going to do is to dump the R4043M3 and find where is the "enable boot manager" register, but this can take few days as I don't have too much time until the weekend

 

Interesting information, nice job psyq321. Looking forward to getting all the bios features back and having proper working video.

 

Wow! Thank a lot, I'll be waiting for you psyq321

 

Dumped R4043M3 BIOS with unlocked Advanced menu (and Boot Manager somehow works) available here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=429689

 

ok thank you.
Here are my results in IDE (left) and ACHI (right) on my vaio Z31WN. Results in IDE seem much better right?

 

That's interesting. I tried to switch from AHCI to IDE mode. However, my Windows 7 cannot boot. I search the web but I can only find instruction on how to switch IDE mode to AHCI mode; not vice versa. What's the required adjustment in Windows 7 to switch from AHCI to IDE mode?

 

I reinstalled windows seven for it

 

This is an age-old problem with Windows - basically Windows loads only current storage drivers (in most cases, those are the drivers installed during the setup process, or Intel Matrix Storage AHCI driver, for those that upgraded the driver with Intel's one).

So, if you change your IDE controller (changing from AHCI to IDE and vice versa does just that) you are going to have problems booting because the correct driver is not loaded, and Windows Kernel cannot access the files on the system volume.

I remember that beta versions of Windows Server 2008 R2 loaded all storage drivers at the beginning to avoid this - I thought they are also going to do the same in Win 7 - but it seems I was mistaken.

Anyway, in order to get Windows to work, you need to activate the "old" IDE drivers - If I remember correctly, the drivers are:

pciide.sys, pciidex.sys, atapi.sys, intelide.sys (I might forgot some - also, if you are using non-Intel IDE controller the drivers are different)

Try booting in Recovery Console (starts Windows "Setup") , start regedit (from the console), mount the system registry hive (it is in [YOUR_SYSTEM_DRIVE]/WINDOWS/System32/Config - file name is SYSTEM) and change the startup behavior for those drivers.

They are in ControlSetXXX/Services/[DRIVER_NAME] inside registry hive

You need to set the Start DWORD value to 0x00000000

 

Thanks for your advice. It works now.

 

Are you using Intel X25-M? If you are using X25-M, did you installed the new firmware? I followed psyq321's advice to boot into Windows 7 using IDE mode. Unfortunately, I cannot get your result. What disk driver are you using? Maybe I need to reinstall Windows 7 to try again. Your 4K write is very good. That's the performance of desktop computer.

 

yes I have the intel x25-M 80gb. I used the new firmware. you must reinstall Windows 7.

 

hi
very nice 4k write !

 

That's great. I will try to re-install Windows 7. Did you install any driver for the disk controller or just install the default disk controller?

 

What is your results ?

 

mine ? mine is sit

 

yes,
your results and achau's results

 

I meant mine are crap ...

 

I apologize for digging up this old thread. I just want a confirmation. Does the above method works on the VAIO Z BIOS R5031M3?

 

Dunno, but you could use bios with already unlocked advanced menu...