Boot from USB/Change SATA mode | HP Spectre Touchsmart XT

[kinwilde]

I can't seem to find much information on the HP Spectre Touchsmart XT so I've come here with a couple of questions.
How do I boot from a usb drive? How do I change my SATA mode to AHCI?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

If your notebook came with W8, you need to change a BIOS setting in order to boot from another device other than the hard drive.

Please see this link below for more info.

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03736054

BIOS settings for the drive controller on most HP consumer notebooks, including yours, cannot be changed, and normally either AHCI or RAID is enabled by default depending on model.

If you want to know the default setting, go to the device manager and if there is an IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller section, click to expand that.

If your notebook has Intel hardware, you will see the name of the SATA AHCI controller listed there.

If it has AMD hardware, you will see the name AMD SATA Controller.

If the notebook has a Storage Controllers category in the device manager, RAID is set by default, click to expand that category, and you will see the name of the SATA/RAID controller listed there.

[kinwilde]

Thank you for the response, I really appreciate the information. I tried disabling secure boot but was still only given the two options: OS Boot Manager, Boot from EFI. As for the drive settings there is no way for me to change from RAID to AHCI?

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

There is no legacy mode option?  There has to be.  The legacy mode option has to be enabled in order to boot from another device.

Unfortunately, there is no way to change the BIOS setting.

I don't understand why HP doesn't provide those options on their consumer notebooks, but for some reason they haven't for years.

The RST driver is supposed to provide TRIM support for SSD's in RAID mode, if that is what you are concerned about.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5136/intel-to-add-trim-support-for-raid-0