Need bios mod to have ACHI for Vostro 230

[asinine]

Can someone please repost this?

BUMP

[kh111]

Hi,

i am wondering if anyone has this file to repost, or could whip up a new bios with AHCI unlocked? it would help me out a lot.

thanks,
k

[turboloader]

Hi,Guys
Any news about a modified BIOS with the AHCI functions for the Dell Vostro 230?

Any help will be much appreciated!

Linky to Dell Vostro 230 BIOS:
http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/e...erid=TFK2N

Many Thanks

p.s: I am sure that some of us could donate to camiloml if he came back and help us unlock the above BIOS!

[xrror]

If someone can grab this and mirror it somewhere more permanent, it would be appreciated...

Vostro230_JL-140_SATAAHCI_ByCamiloml.exe

On why I come back and unlurk, I'm trying to see if with this bios I might be able to get Fernandos modded drivers to work on the Vostro 230. So far I haven't gotten it to work, but if I can fool the drivers by having the ICH7 in the vostro report as an ICH7R then maybe.

http://www.win-raid.com/t11f23-Modded-In...ivers.html

Yes you can "just" manually add the devID for the ICH7 to the drivers, but I'm revisiting this to see if it's actually possible to get AHCI support running in windows.

If somebody knows of a way to actually add or "inject" some AHCI bootcode into the vostro 230 bios that would be awesome. While Camiloml's bios adds the option - from what I understand just enables a bios "hook" to load an AHCI bios module/code to init the ICH7/R for AHCI operation. So while setting the hook is important, there's actually nothing there for the hook to load yet ;-P

Which technically puts the ICH7 into an undefined state, but I haven't had windows crash so far yet from it so hey, at least you get some more options in the bios to play with.

Linux apparently can enable true ACHI, by raw writing chipset registers to "simulate" what a properly initialized ICH7 in AHCI should/would be if the Intel bios code was actually present, then use a linux AHCI module in place of the missing BIOS one. Linux can do this since linux bootloaders are capable of doing this boot device switcheroo while still in the boot process - and then proceed in true AHCI mode. If you try to spam this by raw writing registers in windows, it just blue screens with missing/invalid boot device since you've basically just changed the drive it's booting/running from on the fly. No hotswap boot drive? Killjoys

Anyway why I'm trying to do this - for the 50 or so older machines we have deployed out on campus, to give them a proper "pimped out" windows image for their extended tour of duty =) We already have SSD drives on them ( = awesome) so at this point I'm just trying to get a little more out of the tank so to speak.

Lastly, even if AHCI turns out not to be possible for win7 64bit (it probably won't be, but doesn't hurt to try right?) it still would be nice just to try some newer Intel drivers loaded. Or maybe find a FSB clockgen that works on the vostro 230 lol

[JackAssert]

Vostro230_JL-140_SATAAHCI_ByCamiloml.exe

Unfortunately, Camiloml's BIOS changes do not work for AHCI.

The SATA configuration page does appear, but no combination of settings actual enable AHCI support, even when the BIOS claims AHCI Enabled.

I don't suppose that anyone else succeeded, especially if Intel RST never installed, as it requires AHCI.