NTOSKRNL corruption: GA-X58A-UD7 configured with AHCI

[stuw22]

Hello

Firstly – the system:

GA-X58A-UD7 Rev 1.0 with F8M BIOS.
Intel i7 930.  Not and never been overclocked (one day though :p )
Corsair 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C7 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel (TR3X6G1600C7) – XMP disabled and no manual overclocking
3TB Seagate Baracuda  ST3000DM001 HDD
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 1024MB GDDR5  
Coolermaster Silent Pro Modular 1000W Power Supply
Windows 7 SP1 x64 Ultimate

Next – the good:

This system is rock solid with BIOS configured to IDE :-)

Now - the bad:

With the Intel ICH10R chipset ports configured to AHCI, on boot up, with the HDD connected to port 0,  Windows will sometimes goes into Startup Repair. This is whether from cold or a reboot.

Sometimes, this will give the message that it was unable to fix the problem. Other times it will perform a system restore. Every time it has performed a System Restore, it has reported that Ntoskrnl.exe is corrupt.

There is no consistency to when Startup Repair runs. Sometimes after installing windows updates or an application. Sometimes it is fine in these instances.  Sometimes it does it after no installs have been performed prior to the next reboot or cold boot.   And I can boot up a handful of times with no issues, only to find on the 4th or 5th occasion, I get the dreaded Startup Repair again.

I have tried various IHC10R drivers inbetween  rebuilds of my system and after performing a clean /all in diskpart (usually due to Windows 7 being a bit flaky, stating that it cannot install to the whole hard drive – I do manage to get it to work eventually).

I have tried the following preinstall drivers -
10.6.0.1002 from Gigabyte's site  
v11.6.0.1030, v11.2.0.1006 v8.9.0.1023 from Intel's site

I would think if any of these are to work it should be the one available via Gigabyte.

And I have attempted the post install registry reconfig for Msahci to no avail on a clean build.

This is also whether or not any of the other HDD ports are enabled or not in BIOS (Gigabyte's, Marvell's)

Many passes of the HDD diagnostics check out ok as does chkdsk.
BIOS set to failsafe and optimised to no avail with XMP disabled for the RAM

Why go to such trouble..?  Because when it works, it is lighting fast

So, I could do with knowing if anyone out there does know how to get my particular system to work with AHCI.

If not,  if someone knows of a 1366 socket motherboard that will play nice with my components and will run rock solid with AHCI with this drive, I will buy it.  

OR – if anyone knows of a good 250gb or 500GB SSD that will work in AHCI with this board? Then I may go down that route and use the 3TB drive as storage only  

I have tried to cover all the variables to assist the good people on here who are willing to give of their time to advise us further – but if there is anything I have missed, please let me know. I am currently on my “IDE build” at the moment,  but with a back up image of this, I will only be too happy to run another test install on AHCI to obtain any config info required if I cannot recall it :-)

Thanks...

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

After reading your lengthy tome everything looks to be alright. However I would change the 3TB HDD and use a smaller 2.2TB or less drive for the boot.  I think that is where your problem lies. I have the same motherboard and have been running a Corsair Performance 256GB SSD as a boot drive with no problems for a couple of years now. I have also tried a Samsung 830 256GB SSD and that seemed to be fine.

[stuw22]

Mr Mantis, thanks for the reply :-)   I have been suspecting that the 3TB capacity may have pushed the envelope beyond which AHCI can ensure it will work with such hard drives.  Maybe it will work in some configs, but not others, like mine.   

I have another 3TB drive (same model) that W7 just point blank refused to install on at all with  EFI enabled in the BIOS.   Yet with the one I use currently; W7 eventually allowed it to become the boot drive after faffing around a bit between the “Where do you want to install Windows?” stage and Diskpart.   And all is well as long as I stick to IDE.

So yes, I think I have the perfect excuse to make my first SSD purchase and use the two 3TBs exclusively for my ever expanding music and movies collection
 
Thanks again :-)