I've been trying to get a GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 to recognize a SATA3 Seagate Barracuda 1tb hard drive in AHCI mode with no luck. If I set the PCH SATA Control Mode to AHCI the bios doesn't see the hdd. When I set the PCH SATA Control Mode to IDE it see it right away, listing it as the IDE Channel 0 Master.Is there some setting that I'm missing? Please advise and thanks!Mark

You need do a fresh install of XP with the bios set to AHCI before you install. You need an F6 disk with the Intel RST drivers during the install (Intel SATA preinstall driver for ACHI from gigabyte). Only other method, and I do not recommend it, is a hack of the registry. You only need AHCI if installing an SSD otherwise leave it on IDE.

Thanks Gary. This is going to be a Win7x64 install. What I'm trying to determine is why the BIOS setup, (with no software installed yet), won't recognize a SATA3 drive when I set the PCH SATA Control Mode to AHCI. I don't see the drive in the list of system drives until I set the PCH SATA Control Mode to IDE in the BIOS. Now I might want to use an SSD (or possibly some other device) later so rather then do the Windows 7 work around then, I assume install the driver now. Then return the setting to IDE for normal operation until I do.So are you saying that the drive will not appear in the BIOS list until an AHCI driver is installed? Please advise and thanks!Mark

Thanks Gary. This is going to be a Win7x64 install. What I'm trying to determine is why the BIOS setup, (with no software installed yet), won't recognize a SATA3 drive when I set the PCH SATA Control Mode to AHCI. I don't see the drive in the list of system drives until I set the PCH SATA Control Mode to IDE in the BIOS. Now I might want to use an SSD (or possibly some other device) later so rather then do the Windows 7 work around then, I assume install the driver now. Then return the setting to IDE for normal operation until I do. So are you saying that the drive will not appear in the BIOS list until an AHCI driver is installed? Please advise and thanks! Mark

Hi Mark, same deal as XP almost. The issue is you need a driver for it that is not installed yet. W7 will install the driver if you set AHCI prior to install and you can update the driver later if you want to. Alternatively you can do the F6 install disk thing when asked to when installing W7. I would make sure that I was on the intel ports and not the Marvel ports, fyi..