Windows 10 DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_OR_LESS_EQUAL(storahci.sys) error

[TheDigitalRealm]

Okay, background information first, here are the relevant specs:

i7 5930k (stock)

16gb Corsair Dom Plat 2666MHz

Asus X99 Sabertooth

Zotac GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme edition

Boot drive: 512GB Samsung SM951

After running Windows 8.1 pro for around 4 days flawlessly - playing games, etc. I decided to make the jump to Windows 10. Because of the legitimacy of my OS I decided to buy windows 10 and do a fresh installation. I created a bootable usb drive with the windows 10 ISO, installed it with no issues, then downloaded the drivers for my motherboard, which were the same as the ones I'd had to use for Windows 8.1. I started with the chipset driver, followed by both LAN drivers and then the Asmedia usb 3.1 driver without restarting - so far so good. shortly after, my screen resolution hopped up to its native 1440p resolution without me installing any nvidia drivers. I check my programs to find them already installed. Thinking it was odd but not investigating further, I downloaded and installed Ai suite 3, at which point I rebooted. Got as far as the sign in menu, typed my pin in and it came up with DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_OR_LESS_EQUAL(storahci.sys) and restarted. Upon restart another blue screen error saying windows failed to load correctly appeared and prompted trouble shooting options. After trying to reset the PC, checking bios settings etc. I went for a full re-installation of Windows. After trying the process normally again with the same result, I researched some options I could try. Seeing as Storahci.sys can be caused by key component driver failures or corruptions, I thought back to the nvidia drivers being installed when I'd tried the first time. I go through the same process again, find the nvidia drivers there without me installing them again. I downloaded install display driver, rebooted into save mode and cleaned the drive of the nvidia drivers (this was 353.54 driver) and any associated files, also turning off windows automatic driver installation for new hardware just to be sure. Now I had a fresh OS with no motherboard drivers and no GPU drivers. I then went about installing the drivers from the asus website using a newer chipset driver, then restarted after each driver was installed to make sure none of them were the problem, the chipset and both LAN drivers installed just fine along with the audio driver. I moved on to the geforce drivers, and downloaded the newest 355.60 windows 10 driver and loaded it fine. Finally I installed the Asmedia usb 3.1 driver, Ai suite, cpu and gpuz, a Nintendo installer for steam, chrome, vlc and a couple of other programmes, aida64, and unigine. This all worked fine, I only rebooted once through these installations when prompted by Ai suite. I'd just decided what game I wanted to download and play first on steam and thought I'd download and run crystal disk mark. It installed just fine. I select the 1gb run and close any other programs down. Started the run and the blue screen 'Windows needs to shut down /restart error' appeared. Windows reboots, scans the disk to try and repair it, finishes and boots into the boot options menu, I selected continue to Windows 10.i got the the start menu, typed my pin in and the DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_OR_LESS_EQUAL(storahci.sys) appears again. After restarting, booting into the sign in menu, the same error appears when trying to sign in. I'm now in the bios trying to figure out if any settings need changing but can't see what else it could be now.

It doesn't seem to be the GPU,

The bios is set up to run from the sm951 drive just fine, as it did so with Windows 8.1 pro. The drive itself isn't overheating.

Sorry about the long post, but it'd be great if I could have some help sorting this out. It's a workstation PC for a graphic design and Adobe CC course so is needed ASAP.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

this may help.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install/windows-10-installation-error-storahcisys/12170b65-d4dc-4f42-9f4e-1f60c9f80808?auth=1

[TheDigitalRealm]

this may help.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install/windows-10-installation-error-storahcisys/12170b65-d4dc-4f42-9f4e-1f60c9f80808?auth=1

So someone else on X99 with the same drive is having the same problem freshly installing windows 10. Considering windows 7 and 8.1 both boot fine from the drive. It could be a Windows 10 issue with none-traditional storage? Even though the drive is AHCI based and shouldn't require Intel achi drivers I'll try booting into safe mode and manually downloading and installing them. If that fails to work I'll just revert back to Windows 8.1 until MS fix Windows 10.

Anyone else have any suggestions on how to use Windows 10 on my drive? Really would like to use Windows 10 if possible.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

tried manually searching on google ? 
try the search trem :  DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_OR_LESS_EQUAL(storahci.sys) error

and set the time to past month.

 

[TheDigitalRealm]

tried manually searching on google ? 

try the search trem :  DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_OR_LESS_EQUAL(storahci.sys) error

and set the time to past month.

I've tried searching for information yes, but so far your link has been the most relevant and helpful. It could be that Windows 10 is fine (Considering the drive doesn't need AHCI drivers) and may be a compatability issue with X99 mothrboards and/or the drive itself- possibly a chipset driver issue if X99 is the problem. I've read of people with Skylake systems running this drive with Windows 10 just fine.