Windows 10 installation - error storahci.sys

Hi,

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Community.

It must be frustrating for you that you are getting a BSOD screen very often. Let me help you resolve your issue.

In order to understand issue in better manner, I suggest you to provide the following details.

 
• Have you made any Hardware/Software changes in your computer?
• What is the make and model of your computer?

Resolving Blue Screen errors in Windows:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/resolve-windows-blue-screen-errors

System Restore disclaimer:

Note: When you use System Restore to restore the computer to a previous state, programs and updates that you installed are removed.

For more information, please refer this link: 

You may also want to try the Driver Verifier Manager to see if you can identify the driver or device responsible: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/244617.

I would request you to remove any external devices connected to the computer (except keyboard and mouse) and check if the Blue Screen disappears. If the BSOD disappears, then I would suggest you to install the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver.

StorAHCi is the MS AHCI driver. Install the AHCI driver from Intel, AMD or nVIDIA depending which chipset you use.

Hope this information is helpful. If you have any queries please get back to us with the details and updated status. We will be glad to assist you further.

Thank you.

I had the same problem, installing Windows 10 on a new PC I built with the MSI X99S XPOWER AC Motherboard. 

After three attempts of installing Win 7, then Win 10 (getting the same message twice out of the three times - the other time had other problems preventing log in), I gave up and reverted back to Win 7.

Something worth investigating is that my boot drive is the Samsung SM951 512GB AHCI MZHPV512HDGL M.2.  This is one of the new PCIe 3.0x4 SSD based drives that fits into a small slot on the M/B.

Of course, the coincidence of this being an 'AHCI' SSD based drive, and getting the 'Storeahci.sys' error wasn't lost on me.  These drives are designed to NOT require the AHCI driver, so this could be a M/B or drive issue, not Win 10.

I bought this drive specifically for using as my Boot/OS drive, but was curious if anyone had discovered an incompatibility or other concerns related to the use of an M.2 drive and Win10 drivers.  Or, this could be an MSI BIOS issue.  Like the poster above, during install, I attempted to find drivers on the MSI M/B CD, this time associated with the M.2, but could find none.

I will keep investigating, and I'm tempted to try an upgrade on regular hard drive to see it the problem persists, but was hoping I could avoid doing that if others had any thoughts.

Hello Casual Clark, 

I have an X99 Sabertooth motherboard and I too am using the 512GB Samsung SM951 drive in the m.2 slot as my boot drive and only drive in the system. I finished building the system a few weeks ago and had windows 8.1 running on the drive without a hitch, playing games etc. 

I got through the windows 10 installation without any problems but got the error after installing chipset LAN and USB drivers upon reboot. I tried several methods to see if one of the motherboard drivers was to blame, but restarting after installing each individual driver went just fine. Installed everything else without any issues (only one more restart when downloading programs and additional drivers and that was for Ai suite 3) 

Thought I'd run Crystal disk mark to check it was running at full speed and as soon as I initiated the benchmark I got the same error again. 

S on etching of note is that the entire time I was rebooting when installing M/B drivers is that it flickered when signing in on the sign in page and seemed generally a little unstable at times. Made sure it wasn't a GPU issue as I'd made sure the there weren't any older drivers underneath the newly installed windows 10 ones plus the fact that it ran fine with Windows 8.1. 

It seems windows 10 may have problems with none-traditional storage devices? 

Going to try booting into safe mode and manually installing windows AHCI drivers (even though the driver shouldn't need them) and see if it makes any difference. Other wise I may have to change my drive or be content with Windows 8.1 and StartIsBack to fix the start menu. 

Jacob,

Thx for the response and sorry to hear about your issues.  

I suspect what I haven't yet tested with the M.2 is the fact that I installed it as a Legacy drive, so I should first convert that to a UEFI drive and retry the Windows 10 install to see if the same error occurs.  It is possible that there is something about the M.2 and not using UEFI that confuses Windows 10.

That said, I discovered during attempts to do a system image of the M.2 is that mine is suffering from bad segments which requires a chksdk /r before every backup, which I've been doing every few days given the instability of the drive.  So I'm looking at a return of the M.2 and considering either a replacement of the M.2, or just changing back to a standard SSD drive to rule out the possibility that there is a possible problem between the M.2, Windows, X99 and whatever drivers we have on our systems at a given time. 

I'm a pretty lazy guy, and I don't want to get into one of those RMA swirls where I'm persistently returning the M.2 for one reason or another, only to replace it with another potential headache.  But I think I am willing to attempt an UEFI convert on the M.2 I have now and try a Win 10 install before I return it to see if the storahci.sys error persists.  The bad segments are not resulting in any notable failures, except for backups.  If the storahci.sys error goes away, I'll replace the M.2 with another one.  If not, I'll go the standard SSD route.

If I make any progress, I'll post the results here.

Thanks again.

Hello! 

Yes, I actually made the same (potential) mistake of installing it as a legacy drive, and only after installing Windows did I change it to a UEFI drive which won't have any effect on the currently installing Win10 as it's already been recognised by the OS as legacy. I'll be sure to check the settings are saved and try reinstalling with the UEFI convert as you're planning to do. Let me know what you did to get there too, as we might have different methods and if one works but the other doesn't we can trade information.

I've taken the precaution of ordering a 400GB Intel 750 SSD which will arrive tomorrow, just incase the UEFI fix doesn't work. I intended to buy two SSD drives anyway - I'll use the SM951 for games and mass storage or possibly return it for a 1TB SATA SSD. 

I am experiencing a similar problem:

Mainboard: Asus P6X58D Premium

I have 2 Samsung SSD's connected to the 6GB/s Marvell Controller and 2 HDD's Connected to the normal slower controller.

Specs: 

• Storage
  Intel ICH10R controller
  6 xSATA 3.0 Gb/s ports
  Intel Matrix Storage Technology Support RAID 0,1,5,10
  Marvell® PCIe SATA 6Gb/s controller*
  - 2 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports
  * These SATA ports are for data hard drives only. ATAPI devices are not supported. 

• Chipset
  Intel® X58 / ICH10R 

I frequently get the same DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (storahci.sys) error.

I can't even uninstall software anymore without it completing uninstall and resulting in the BSOD.

I upgraded from Windows 8.1, where i did not experience those problems.

Will I have to buy a newer Mainboard?

There seem to be no drivers out there for Windows 10, by Asus, Intel and Marvell

Bios was and is set to AHCI...

After troubleshooting a little further with my Samsung SM951 and getting nowhere in terms of drive stability (boots into OS then crashes upon opening more than one application with the same error being displayed) I caved and bought an Intel 750 Series PCI-e NVMe SSD and have had no problems running an NVMe drive in my X99 system. This error for a lot of people seems to be just with certain hardware configurations. 

As far as I can tell the Samsung drive just doesn't like certain hardware configurations when being used as a boot drive. I have not yet tested to see whether it is stable just as a storage drive for my work and games. I'm hoping it was just because it was being used as the boot drive. I'll reply again with my findings. 

Regards,

Jacob