XPS 8920 M2 SSD - Unable to boot from disk

Is the M.2 drive partitioned using GPT or MBR? I think it should be GPT for UEFI booting. I am not sure how Windows partitions the drive.

I assume you mean BIOS setting Boot Option #1: UEFI: Windows Boot Manager.

This should not be a problem with Windows 10, but the OS should have the NVMe driver bult-in. I read that the Microsoft NVMe driver is generally slower and you should replace it with vendor provided driver once Windows is installed.

I also found this about manually adding a boot option (in the BIOS under File Browser Add Boot Option): www.tomshardware.com/.../win10-fails-install-nvme-960.html (look at the best answer).

Let us know if this solves your problem.

Its partitioned using GPT, and I can see the EFI boot partition on the drive. The BIOS recognizes the drive and will allow me to select it as a boot option - its just when I do I get a 'boot failure on device' error message.

Manually adding the boot partition didn't seem to work either.

I have run out of ideas for a solution. Hopefully someone else here has been successful.

simon8217 said in the original post that he used F12 to make sure he was booting from the SSD. When it failed to boot he reconnected the HDD so I assume the SSD was the only boot drive in the system when it failed to boot. As far as a defective SSD, he was able to confirm the install of Windows 10 on it and he also used Samsung's clone tool and Dell OS Recovery Tool so if the SSD was defective you would think one of those things would have failed. I am curious about the solution to this problem because it appears simnon8217 is not the only one to encounter this type of problem with M.2 NVME SSDs.  I wonder if there is an issue with the BIOS and the Samsung M.2 NVME SSD. Perhaps someone here has been successful installing a Samsung EV) 960 M.2 NVMW SSD in an XPS 8910 or 8920.

Is the SSD first in the boot sequence in BIOS setup?

Defective SSD...??

simon8217, you may want to look at this thread if you have not already: en.community.dell.com/.../20006250 . He seem to be able to install the Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVMe SSD in a XPS 8910. He seem to do all the same things you have done yet he was able to get it to work.

Thanks for all the help everyone... still no luck on my end.  Tried everything I can think of, and looked through that thread you mentioned vtoy116.

I hate to do it but taking the machine back to BestBuy later today, will let you know if they can find the solution

I am almost ready to return a brand new Dell 8920 purchased direct for the same issue. I am trying to install a Samsung 960 Pro M.SSD drive in place of the original 512GB SSD. I have tried all of the steps as the original poster. I spent four hours on the phone last night with Dell Technical Support.

Dell technical support had me download the Microsoft Windows 10 Media Creation tool and I made a new Windows 10 USB. They also directed me to a site to get Samsung drivers to use for the install. Note: The official Samsung site has NO technical information on the drive that is available.

The drive is recognized by the BIOS and the Windows 10 Pro installer once the drivers were provided. During the reboot the "Boot Device Failure" message appears.

I have given up and paid $150 to the best buy Geek Squad to make it their problem.  Should get the PC back in a couple of days and if its fixed I will post the solution here.  if not.... I will get a refund and purchase an HP instead...

Will be looking for forward to your update.

I put the original NVMe PC300 SSD back in and the system booted back up. The specifications on this 512GB SSD manufactured by SK hynix are:

Sequential Read  2000MB/s  --- It is benchmarking at only 1200MB/s

Sequential Write 800MB/s  --- It is benchmarking at only 750MB/s

Random Read: 200K IOPS

Random Write: 160K IOPS

The Samsung 960 Pro is a lot faster at from a specification standpoint.

I need to go back to Micro Center tomorrow and pick up some right angled SATA III cables. I stopped at Fry's today and as usual they had no stock.

I returned the Samsung 960 Pro SSD back to Micro Center before my 30 day return window expired..  Samsung offered no technical support other than some canned responses.

I will keep tabs on the various thread about this issue and may re-purchase the SSD when a solution is found.

OK so I now have it working...

The steps in this post outline how to make it work. en.community.dell.com/.../20011828

The mistake I made was that the SATA should be RAID and not AHCI as the other documentation suggests.

Once that is set you need to install the Intel RTS driver, since the SATA controller on the motherboard of the Dell needs it to be able to correctly detect the drive during boot.

To get that...

downloadcenter.intel.com/.../Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Intel-RST-

Download One of the following F6 Driver Diskettes (depending on your operating system): and unzip to a USB

f6flpy-x86.zip - For 32-bit versions of the operating system

f6flpy-x64.zip - For 64-bit versions of the operating system

If you don't set the BIOS to RAID the driver won't load.

Note that once you do this the Samsung software will not detect the drive, and so you cannot use the Samsung driver for it... but the intel driver seems OK.

I am now getting speeds similar to those shown by Robert - still not up to the max of the Samsung drive, but almost 10x as fast as the drive that comes with the PC.

Windows is now cold booting in about 4 seconds, so I am a happy man, and hopefully this will save others having the pain I did!

The instruction in the other post was not clear, it said the BIOS should be set to use SATA. It should have said SATA Operation should be set to use RAID (not AHCI). Thanks for correcting this. The only thing that still seems strange to me is that almost everything you read says you should use AHCI for SSDs yet you can't do that with this setup. This makes me wonder if this situation is unique to Dell.

Indeed VERY unique to Dell and apparently the 8920.  My 8900 is running a Samsung 950 PRO NVMe on an x4 card with the BIOS set to ACHI.

Could be that Samsung tweaked something (in the 960 EVO) that affected the Dell BIOS.  Or Dell just hasn't caught up yet.  This is mostly bleeding edge stuff.  

I can't imagine it making a difference, but I wonder if the "PRO" would work in ACHI in the 8920?  Anyone here using the PRO - or just EVO?

Being forced to run this drive in RAID is not a solution.  It's apparently a sacrifice you have to make.  In the next week or two, Samsung and Dell may be making the sacrifice and eating what they created.  Then I'll buy it all back once this is fixed since I like everything else about the system.

Also, everyone's mentions of using the Intel RST drivers confuses me - for Windows 10 anyway.  My Windows 10 USB had no problems seeing the 960 EVO and installing the OS on it.  It just won't boot until you change the SATA to RAID.  

I'm just convinced this is a Dell BIOS problem/shortcoming.  Hopefully temporary since it's so new.

Interesting as well.  Even though the system as shipped was set to SATA-RAID with the Toshiba NVMe, I was able to use the sequence in my other thread to get it working with ACHI.  After finally discovering that RAID would let me finally boot the 960 EVO, I was certain that's all I needed to do.  But that trick didn't work with the Samsung.

en.community.dell.com/.../