Dell :: BIOS Hack To Enable Intel VT And/or AHCI On Inspiron

when I got my 9400/E1705 I was always sad for not having the AHCI option available in the BIOS.

This was asked for so many times:

- "Notebooks BIOS should support AHCI"
[url]

- "Enable AHCI in Dell Notebook BIOS"
[url]

- "Please give us BIOS support for SATA AHCI mode on Inspirons!"
Please give us BIOS support for SATA AHCI mode on Inspirons!

- "Give us real bios control"
[url]

- "Bios release"
[url]

In the Sony forum, they have found a way to activate these options even if they're not present in the BIOS:

How to Enable Intel VT and AHCI on a Napa/Santa Rosa platform Phoenix BIOS Vaio laptop
...
The only item you'll need is a bootable DOS media. Click one of these links for instruction for creating a bootable floppy disk (with USB floppy drive) or usb stick.USB flash1 or USB flash2 or CDR (add modified table file to image before writing).
Instructions:

1.Download symcmos and copy it to your bootable DOS media. This utility is used to modify your Phoenix BIOS settings. Also, download a DOS text editor and copy it to the media if you feel comfortable editing a file in DOS.

2.Go to the BIOS by pressing F2 during start-up, or when the VAIO logo appears, and reset the settings to factory default. Save and reboot.

3.Go back to the BIOS and enable the boot from external devices option. Save and reboot.

4.Press ESC when the VAIO logo appears to bring up the boot selection menu and select the bootable DOS media. At the prompt, type "symcmos -v2 -lDefault.txt", without quotes, and note that there's no space in between the flag and filename. This will create a literal symbol table from the NVRAM named Default.txt which contains all the current BIOS settings. Reboot by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del. If that doesn't work, hold the power button until the notebook turns off.

5.Use the DOS text editor (or boot to another OS and use a text editor there) to edit the generated Default.txt file. Change the following lines and save the modified file to something else (e.g. modified.txt):

For Napa SZs - R0112N0

AHCI: (015C) [0000] ---> (015C) [0001]

VT-x: (0354) [0000] ---> (0354) [0001]...