SSD drives on "older" laptops

I have acquired a handmedown Notebook from my daughter - it's a G72-102SA as far as I can determine.  The BIOS is F.09 - 04/20/2010.  It's currently fitted with a 250GB HDD and I'd like to install an SSD.  Crucial scans the laptop and states that an SSD would be fine.  But the boards that I have read suggest that the BIOS SetUp needs to be set to AHCI for an SSD to be recognised.  Can't see that option anywhere.  So can my 5 year old laptop accept an SSD?
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Doh!
An age thing.............
Thanks Huffer

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    http://static.usenix.org/events/fast11/tech/full_papers/Wei.pdf
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