Samsung Magician doesn't detect SSD when set to AHCI mode

Question

I just installed a Samsung 840 Pro SSD in my box, NOT as the system drive, but just as a regular HD. I have a Gigabyte board[*] with 6 SATA ports in an Intel controller and 2 additional ones in a Gygabyte controller; I plugged it into the Gigabyte controller, which was set in the BIOS to work in IDE mode, and things worked pretty well. However, Samsung Magician 4.1 warned me that the drive wasn't in AHCI mode, so I went into the BIOS and changed the Gygabyte SATA controller to work as AHCI... and now everything still works, but Samsung Magician can't detect the SSD.

The software says that "no Samsung drives were found on the system"; the funny thing is, you can select the SSD in the software's disks dropdown, but it will treat it as a regular drive, without giving any additional information nor any options. This means that I can't check the drive's health, nor upgrade its firmware.

Anyone knows what's going on? (This is all on Windows 7, BTW).

[*] A Gygabte GA-P55-USB3, to be exact.

Solution

Answering my own question: in the end, I unplugged the SSD from the Gigabyte controller and plugged it into the Intel one, which is also set to AHCI, and the Samsung software magically found it.

Comments

[David Schwartz]

Try removing the drive from the device manager and then rebooting.

[PaulJ]

Just tried it. Didn't work.

[Ramhound]

@PaulJ - Have you verfied the firmware being is used is the most recent version?

[PaulJ]

The firmware in my SSD is version DXM05B0Q, which a quick googling says was released in May. If there's a newer version I don't know... but then again, considering that the only way to update the firmware is using Samsung Magician, and Magician does not detect my SSD, I'm not sure what good would it do.

[neersighted]

Please mark this as accepted.

[PaulJ]

Even if it's my own answer? Can you do that?

[neersighted]

Yep, self answering is accepted and helpful for those who find this question on Google.

[Herman Toothrot]

this does not solve the problem of upgrading the firmware

[brianlmerritt]

It solves the problem of getting the SSD to get a mirror image of the hard drive. Rather than wait for a new bios which may never happen, it moves the user forward. If you have a better solution, please post your answer

[hamish]

yes I found this is the problem on mine too! it can see all the drives on my Intel SATA controller. but Samsung MAgician can't see my two drives on the Gigabyte controller!!! what gives. and its twice as slow like this too. I am going to swap the cable over.