RayLopez99 wrote:
Good to know but I'm doing a clean re install. Therefore,
let me ask a simpler question. For mechanical HDD, apparently
there is no big difference between AHCI and IDE mode, but the
former is maybe slightly better and supports hot swapping. But
this PC is not a server, so I will not enable hot swapping in the
BIOS. But here is my main question: I do not want to do ACHI
enable after Windows install, but, since this is a clean install,
only before I install windows. So, I set up the BIOS so SATA mode
(I have a 2011 Asus board) is "ACHI MODE", and the specific SATA
ports (I have six) as "hot plug = disabled", and then slip the DVD
with Windows 7 into the DVD reader, is that it? BTW I just noticed
that the DVD reader itself is SATA, interesting.
Anyway, that's my main question: how do i enable ACHI before I
install Windows 7 from a DVD onto a DBAN clean mechanical HDD?
Just set up the motherboard, any way you see fit, and install.
The OS has enough drivers, to take care of it. The OS has IDE, AHCI,
and a limited set of RAID drivers. For most people, that's plenty.
Thanks. I went through the thread on "SYSTEM RESERVED 100MB"
(of about 100 MB, hidden) and it was not crystal clear whether deleting
this 100 MB "Reserve Partition" during installation will disable the
"System Restore" Registry feature of W7. I know that deleting (or
rather, not creating) this 100 MB "System Reserved Partition" will not
enable you to turn on BitLocker encryption, but if I don't use that
Bitlocker feature (which in my legal version of W7 Professional is not
supported anyway), is it OK to not create it, and, if I don't create it
on initial install, will I still have the more useful "System Restore"
(i.e., to "Last Good Bootup" or whatever that says)? I like the Registry
System Restore, and would hate to lose it if I don't create a 100MB
"System Reserved Partition" during W7 install.
RL
As far as I know, all this split of files does, is separately
package the boot files. That's what SYSTEM RESERVED holds. Files
that help the OS start the boot process. SYSTEM RESERVED is not
given a drive letter. Microsoft doesn't particularly want it visible
in daily use. In fact, they would prefer that system restore snapshots
not be triggered on that partition, because it burns up the spare space on
that tiny partition. On later OSes, they made the partition a bit
bigger (presumably to reduce the tech support calls, caused by
running out of space).
System restore or other OS features, continue to work properly on
C:, whether you do a one or two partition install. System Restore
snapshots the registry. And stores it on C:.
There are some automatic boot repair functions, and as far as I know,
they still work whether you install on one or two partitions. But I
haven't tested that here. I also can't tell you, whether the automatic
repair will create a SYSTEM RESERVED and fill it up, all on its own.
(Like, stupidly change your one-partition install, into a two-partition
install, under fault conditions.) I hope it doesn't do that, but you
never know.
If you need the primary partitions, then you do a one partition install.
If you don't need the primary partitions, and can do extended/logical ones
for the rest of your needs, then you can do the two-partition install.
Paul
