H97M Ann - SATA AHCI Controller Drivers for Win10

Long story, but purchased a H97M Anniversary Motherboard with Intel 9series chipset back in 2014 and installed Vista on it (don't ask). Now looking to do a clean install of Windows 10 and the installer is asking for drivers for the SATA AHCI Controller. The disk that came with the motherboard didn't have Win10 drivers (as I bought it pre-Win10 release) and I can't find updated drivers that will work in the Win10 installer.

mr.roboto wrote: Long story, but purchased a H97M Anniversary Motherboard with Intel 9series chipset back in 2014 and installed Vista on it (don't ask). Now looking to do a clean install of Windows 10 and the installer is asking for drivers for the SATA AHCI Controller. The disk that came with the motherboard didn't have Win10 drivers (as I bought it pre-Win10 release) and I can't find updated drivers that will work in the Win10 installer.   Any suggestions?

Sorry, but that does not make any sense. There is no need to install an AHCI driver for the Intel SATA controller on your board. Windows 10 has a built in AHCI driver, as well as an Intel RAID driver, if you have the SATA mode set to RAID.

There is absolutely no need to install an AHCI driver when installing any version of Windows, from Windows 7 to 10. Windows has had a built in AHCI driver since Windows 7, and still does with Windows 10. Frankly, it sounds like you are installing Vista again, sorry to say.

I'm trying to think of a situation where Windows 10 would be asking for an AHCI driver, that is really, really strange, IF that is actually happening. Something very basic is wrong.

The Windows AHCI driver, storahci, is the same driver supplied with Windows 8, 8.1, and 10. The Windows 7 AHCI driver is msahci, and in reality both seem to be the same driver, renamed. My point is there is no special Windows 10 AHCI driver that will be on your board's driver disk.

Your board only has an Intel SATA controller, which works with the Windows AHCI driver just fine. The only SATA driver for the Intel SATA ports you'll find in your board's download page for Windows 10 is the Intel IRST RAID driver:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/H97M%20Anniversary/?cat=Download&os=Win1064

Windows 10 has a built in Intel RAID driver (and AMD, LSI, and other RAID drivers) which is sufficient when using SATA drives.

What is the Windows 10 installation media you are using?

What drive model is the target OS drive?

How many SATA drives do you have connected to the board at this time? You should only have the target OS drive connected to the board (or connected to power) while doing any Windows installation.

mr.roboto wrote: Thanks for the replies. I thought it was very odd too. Let me go in to some detail:   Checked BIOS and Controller is set to AHCI so RAID is not the issue.   Ok, on to the other points:   - Definitely is Windows 10 installer (thanks for the vote of confidence lol). Purchased a new copy of the 32 bit version from Microsoft online, downloaded an ISO and burnt to a new blank DVD as a bootable disk. Validated on the installation screen that the copyright was Microsoft 2016 to make sure it is definitely not the Vista install disk. It looks nothing like the Vista install screens and never had this issue installing Vista.   - I did have all four SATA drives connected. I have now removed the three partitioned storage drives and left connected only the unpartitioned 500 GB drive intended to install the OS.   - First reinstall attempt after disconnecting storage drives, I got the same error. Error says:   "A media driver your computer needs is missing. This could be a DVD, USB or Hard Disk driver. If you have a CD, DVD, or USB Flash Drive with the driver on it, please insert it now."   - I remove the installation disk and replace it with the driver disk that came with the H97m Anniversary and hit OK.  I get a dialog box asking me to select the driver to install. The only option available is:   "Intel(R) 9 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller (D:\i386\Intel_32bit(v13.1.0.1058)\iaAHCIC.inf)   - I select this option and press Next. It starts to install but fails, giving me this error message:   "We couldn't install the [Intel(R) 9 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller (D:\i386\Intel_32bit(v13.1.0.1058)\iaAHCIC.inf)] device driver. Contact your vendor for an updated driver".   - I then downloaded the updated Windows 10 drivers from here:   http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/H97M%20Anniversary/?cat=Download&os=Win10   - I put them on a USB stick and inserted that. I clicked OK, hit Browse, selected the USB drive and tried again but I got the following error msg:   "No device drivers were found. Make sure that the installation media contains the correct drivers, and then click OK."   And here I am. Any thoughts?

First, the driver disk that comes with a mother board, and the drivers you can download from your board's Download page, does not have any drivers that can be used by a Windows installation program, with one exception. That exception is the Intel "F6" RAID/AHCI driver. Actually, I don't see the Intel F6 driver in the list of drivers for your board, but that doesn't matter, I'll give you a link to that below. I imagine the reason the F6 driver is not included on the Download page is because it should not be needed for an H97 board.

All of the other "drivers" are a part of programs meant to be run in Windows itself, not in the installation environment. That's why they are failing to work. The driver disk provided with the board is meant to be used once Windows is installed, as well as the (same) drivers you can download. The only driver on that disk that could be used by a Windows installation would be the Intel F6 driver, if it is on the disk.

Again, there is absolutely no need to load an AHCI driver when using Windows 10. While I have never used the 32 bit version of Windows, I can't imagine that would make a difference. An AHCI driver has been included in Windows since Windows 7, and possibly even with Vista. AHCI is standard stuff, nothing exotic about it. Are you stuck with the 32 bit Windows for some reason?

Question, what DVD drive are you using? Is it a SATA interface optical drive? I doubt an IDE interface DVD drive exists, but who knows? If it did, you'd be using an IDE to SATA adapter of some kind. That's the only scenario I can think of that might cause the need to load a driver.

Regardless, below is a link to an Intel "F6" 32 bit AHCI driver for Win 10 you can try to load. This is both a RAID and AHCI driver package, don't worry that it is a RAID driver. If you look at the files, you'll two whose name contains AHCI. The standard way to load this driver is from a USB flash drive.

The download file you want is the f6flpy-x86.zip file on this page. The 32 bit version is the "x86" file (sorry for the text link, the forum link tool fails with some URLs):

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25165/Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Intel-RST-RAID-Driver?product=55005

Extract the f6flpy-x86 folder from the .zip file, and copy it to a USB flash drive. Use a USB 2.0 port on the board's IO panel. I'm skeptical this will help you, but worth a try if only to confirm something else is wrong.

At what point of the Win 10 installation do you get that message? I know that is not easy to answer. Is it before the actual installation begins? Do you select a Custom or Standard installation?

Did you use the Microsoft Media Creation Tool to download the Win 10 32 bit ISO file? If so, did you use it to burn the DVD installation media?

I've been using USB installation media for so long now, I don't even have an optical drive in any of my main PCs. It's very simple to write the Win 10 ISO to a USB flash drive, the Media Creation Tool offers that to you when the ISO download is complete.

Sorry to question (and insult you) about your installation media, but what you are describing about the need for a driver should not be happening with Windows 10. Or 8.1 or 7. I have a feeling there is a detail or two we have not gotten to yet.

I'm very curious about what the issue is in your situation. Yours is the first post of this type I've ever seen. Loading a driver for a storage device when installing Windows 10 is only necessary when using a RAID array of PCIe NVMe SSDs, because the very latest version of the IRST RAID driver is necessary. Win 10 does not have that version included with it.

OK, USB installer worked! Thanks very much for your help.