M.2.0 disk not detected
Winux -
Hello,
Following the crash of an SSD, I decided to equip myself with an M.2 SSD via PCI since my motherboard does not have a dedicated M.2 slot.
When launching the Windows installer with a USB drive, everything goes normally. My disk is detected by the installer and can be initialized for the Windows installation.
Once the installation files are ready and the system restarts, the disk is not detected by the UEFI BIOS.
So I check my config, and I am indeed set to AHCI (I've also tested RAID). And still not detected by the motherboard via the PCI port.
I don't understand why the Windows installation utility sees it, but the BIOS does not. Therefore, since the BIOS sees nothing, it obviously doesn't boot from it.
Here is my config:
Motherboard P8Z68-M_PRO
4 answers
Hello,
It seems normal since the BIOS only includes generic drivers for keyboard/mouse, screen, native storage, and the adapter card is not supposed to work until after Windows starts and not before via the BIOS.
Even though in some cases it may work, you should check in advance if the motherboard is designed for this integration in its BIOS for this M.2 adapter card.
A little tip for you:
An SSD is not just about peak speed; it also needs to be quick at transferring small packets of files installed randomly on the chip, which replaces the read head of a traditional disk. If an SSD is of low quality, the performance during intensive use can quickly saturate the storage.
The type of cell, DRAM, and SLC cache are very important in an SSD.
There are different ways to measure the real performance of storage.
In my opinion, a good SATA is better than a bad NVME, except for brief and never intensive use.
Ok. So if I understand correctly, you wouldn't put a bad NVMe as the main disk on a machine dedicated to heavy workloads.
Well, personally, I only buy mid-range or high-end equipment. Low-end is always too expensive in the long run. My current HTPC has caused the failure of 3 SSDs in 15 years, and one power supply. It's still okay, I haven't gone bankrupt!
My goal is to keep it running for as long as possible. And I don't know why, the disks connected to the motherboard's SATA ports are no longer detectable once they've been plugged in. They're actually unusable. Ever since I had a power outage, the PC has been acting up.
I changed the power supply, it will only restart if I remove the SATA peripherals. That's where the idea of using NVMe via PCI 8x or 16x came from, since those are ports I have available.
I've missed for the moment. I will eventually find a solution, but if the motherboard fries another SATA SSD, I'm giving up. I might create a Windows USB stick while waiting to build a new machine.
The BIOS is probably the issue, although I'm not sure if it's even possible to boot from a PCI device in a non-dedicated PCI slot?
The M.2 NVMe slots on my motherboard are dedicated to be used as drives.
An external SSD would work, the SSD in a USB enclosure with a program like WinToUSB to install Windows on the SSD, but the USB standard is already slower.
Is your SSD SATA or PCIe (NVMe)?
Find a compatible NVMe motherboard + CPU + RAM kit if you want to boot from a recent NVMe M.2.
Limiting my NVMe to the transfer speed of USB 3.2 doesn't interest me.
I'll try to go back to a simple SSD (SATA) in the meantime, to see if I can extend the lifespan of this computer that has been serving as my home theater PC since 2010, built by myself.
If the motherboard gives me a hard time again, it means it's over. I'll reconsider how to build a new HTPC, 4K!
I was afraid my motherboard wouldn't support NVMe, and now I have confirmation of that. Too bad, but there are limits at some point. My next hardware will be designed to last as long as this one. ;-)
I have small 10gbps enclosures with NVMe 2242, they look like a USB stick, and Windows 11 works very well on it, using USB 3.2 Gen1 already; I don't use my Gen2 which is dedicated to something else behind the PC, but the Gen 1 on the front.
In Gen2, I tested them once with CrystalDiskMark at about 1050Mbps read and write.
I could indeed create a USB drive with Windows 10 Pro on it. Booting from the drive would then give me access to my MVMe directly through Windows. This would allow me to keep my MVMe for disk D, for example, and extend the lifespan of this platform a little longer.
Thanks for the idea, I will look into it.
It's clear, I went through the technical specifications of the motherboard and found compatibility regarding the slots simply.
When this motherboard was designed, MVMe wasn't talked about yet. It was actually the beginning of the new UEFI BIOS.
So there you go, I couldn't try. If the manufacturer had created an updated firmware ensuring this compatibility, it might have worked. But given its age, manufacturers also want to sell products. It's not always in their best interest to keep an old platform updated, and it's not profitable especially.