Sudden AHCI problem with Gigabyte motherboard

[Ballatician]

I recently did a reinstall of Windows 7 on my SSD (C) and connected my data hdd (D) and everything worked fine. I proceeded to try one of the popular methods to move the entire C\Users directory to D but that gave me an issue when trying to log in to Windows after reboot since my profile could not be found. I searched and searched but resigned to reinstalling once again.

However, this time the startup pauses when in AHCI mode. I only have the minimum connected (SATA SSD and SATA CD/DVD drive).

What could be going on? I would like to format both drives and start from scratch and get this up and running again...


System:
Motherboard Gigabyte EP45-UD3LR with newest BIOS
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2.80Ghz
Drive 1-boot OCZ SSD-Vertex 30Gb
Drive 2-data WD WD Blue - 1Tb
Display/Video Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 6670
CD/DVD drive Samsung SH-S203B

RAM 4GB Corsair

OS: Win 7, 64-bit upgrade disc


Appreciate any help.

 

[Ballatician]

I should add that I have read in the manual about making a SATA/RAID/AHCI driver diskette.

However, I have installed windows at least 3 other times and never had any issue using the SSD in AHCI mode.

 

[Ballatician]

I'm not trying to keep bumping this but do want to share what I find as I explore this problem. Hopefully it can be useful to someone else experiencing the same issue.

My problem is quite similar to what is being described here - http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/24883-welcome-gigabyte-technical-support-74.html

I know I previously installed in AHCI but I used this - http://lifehacker.com/5467758/move-the-users-directory-in-windows-7 to try and move the USERS directory. After reboot, at the windows screen it said updating registry and I believe that my drive now appears to have a previous IDE install causing the error 23.

Users Jeltz details one solution but if the error is because of the formatting of certain sectors of the drive then I wonder if a secure erase (or sanitary erase since this is 1st Gen Vertex) will be worth doing to reset to factory condition. Perhaps I can use a different boot utility or linux live cd to do this...

 

[Ballatician]

Ok so I updated firmware (destructive flash to 1.7 which did a sanitary erase) and now can get past the AHCI driver part in the BIOS but I am getting an error as it tries to boot from the Windows install dvd

"Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and Press Enter"

 

[Ballatician]

Here is where I am, really hoping this isn't a hardware problem.

Playing with settings in the Integrated Peripherals section of the BIOS.

Changing to:
SATA RAID/AHCI Mode - AHCI
SATA Port0-3 Native Mode - Disabled

allowed me to boot from optical drive with old vista disc. Anyone have this board? Why would operating in native IDE mode cause a problem??