So I've had AHCI issues on my DQ67SW for a while now, mostly pertaining to hot-plug just not working/detecting at all. I've found I get somewhat more predictable performance in Windows 7 using the stock Microsoft AHCI driver, as opposed to the Intel controller driver.
I need to do some data recovery with FreeBSD on this machine, and with the latest BIOS (0067) FreeBSD won't even boot at all. FreeBSD detects the controller as Cougar Point with 6 6Gbps ports (which is wrong, this board has the old 2+4 configuration), and detects some kind of enclosure device which doesn't exist. All that's plugged in is a Hitachi hard drive and a Pioneer DVD-RW drive.
It looks like FreeBSD detects the hard drive fine, but is failing to detect the DVD-RW due to the errors pertaining to the phantom enclosure. As I'm trying to boot the FreeBSD install disc for a live environment, that's the end of that.
This has been the most disappointing Intel Desktop Board I've ever owned. I buy (or, used to buy) Intel boards because _they_ don't_ _do_ _this_ _crap_.
I'm sure this is a long shot, but could a firmware guy take a look at the published firmware for this board and ensure the correct bits for SATA/AHCI are being compiled in?
Any other troubleshooting suggestions would be appreciated. I'm tired of fighting this thing, and I've seen no other indications of a hardware fault.