Installation of Crucial MX100 256 SSD into P55-UD4 motherboard

[Jeffc]

Hi,
I decided it was time to speed up the boot time of my machine and Separate Windows and data by adding a new SSD. I purchased a Crucial MX100 256Gb SSD and connected it via one of the Intel SATA ports (SATA 2-0) but after cloning my current hard drive using the included Acronis True Image software I found on reboot that my crucial SSD did not appear.

I believe that I should use SATA 2-0 as that is the only port that supports AHCI mode. However after configuring AHCI mode in the bios (which I also upgraded to F9 from F2) my machine would just keep rebooting. I set back to IDE and my machine works fine but dont see the SSD Drive.

Can anyone help? I read from another post that I need to install latest Intel RST drivers but when I look on the Intel download page it lists a number of controllers which are supported and to be honest I am not sure which mine is.

My spec is:
Gigabyte P55-UD4 Rev1.0
Win7 Home Edition 64 bit
4GB Dual-channel Corsair DDR3
ATI Radeon HD 4650 Graphics
Samsung 80GB (boot) + Maxtor 80GB + Seagate 160GB

I dont want to wast time installing newer drivers if the problem is simpler to solve.

Thanks
JC

[dmdilks]

There is only one Intel Rapid Storage Technology for your board. Plus it is for all OS. One other thing is if you clone that over from a hard drive that is IDE that is how it will work. You can't just go into the bios and set it to AHCI.

You have boot up on the IDE and the go into the registry and change it to AHCI. Then reboot and than change it in the bios.

http://www.askvg.com/how-to-change-sata-hard-disk-mode-from-ide-to-ahci-raid-in-bios-after-installing-windows/

Plus once you got it set to AHCI make sure in "Advanced BIOS Features" than in "Hard Disk Boot Priority". That your SSD is the first one in the list

[Jeffc]

Many thanks dmdilks. I am going to follow the instructions contained on the link you provided and hopefully will post success or otherwise to this thread!
Thanks again for the useful info.
Jeff