[SOLVED] Boot: normal or AHCI enabled option?

[seldo]

Hello,

I installed N4F yesterday on a new machine. Everything is running well but I still have one question.

I downloaded the liveusb and created a USB key with the recommended tool for Windows.
So far so good, N4F booted.

However, it prompted me with the following options (wording is approximate):
-boot with normal comfiguration
-boot with AHCI enabled
-...

In the BIOS of my machine (HP Microserver Gen8) I set up the SATA option to AHCI as recommended (instead of the HP Smart Array)
System boots, disks are founds, no issues detected.

However, when booting headless, option 1 (normal setup) is selected.
I'd like to know: what's the difference between normal and AHCI enabled. Is it a matter of which drivers are being loaded?
Should I set up my boot so I always start with option 2 (AHCI)?

The insetting thing is that this choice comes up at every boot while when looking for information it should only be there the first time. Is this a problem to have this choice coming up each time? Does it mean setup is still incomplete?

I originally booted from the liveusb but then moves to installing liveusb embedded on a second key, thinking it would resolve this issue. It remained (and that's what I'm running on at the moment)

Advice would be greatly appreciated!
-seldo

[Snufkin]

Suggest reading two Wikipedia articles, ACPI and AHCI.

[seldo]

Suggest reading two Wikipedia articles, ACPI and AHCI.

Hehe, thanks for pointing out that it wasn't making any sense
I meant AHCI and I edited my post above for clarification.

Also, I set up AHCI mode (non-legacy) in the BIOS before the installation.

[Snufkin]

I meant AHCI and I edited my post above for clarification.

Not completely, because actual text menu item is 2. Boot NAS4Free with ACPI enabled. And it has nothing to do with disks, SATA and AHCI mode.
ACPI feature is known as a problematic in certain h/w configs and even buggy in rare cases. That's why it's available but as a second non-default option.

Also, I set up AHCI mode (non-legacy) in the BIOS before the installation.

That's right configuration which supports modern SATA HDD (NCQ) and SSD (TRIM) features.

[seldo]

Then this answers my question: I originally read it as AHCI and not ACPI
But since i have no issues with ACPI, normal boot is ok.

One last question: can you make choice 1) the automatic choice, without having the system to wait for the countdown before proceeding?

[Snufkin]

One last question: can you make choice 1) the automatic choice, without having the system to wait for the countdown before proceeding?

Most boot loaders have settings to change:

• time to wait for user's choice,
• default menu item,
• menu item chosen during last boot,
• ...and more.

But embedded NAS4Free installation is locked for writes except configuration file, and we have to rely on developers' choice.

[seldo]

But embedded NAS4Free installation is locked for writes except configuration file, and we have to rely on developers' choice.

Thanks for clarifying this!