Booting from Samsun NVMe M.2 w/ DELL T7610 Workstation

Reading kikixxx's statement about not needing a Dell Ultra Speed PCIe NVMe adapter to boot a NVMe M.2 SSD interested me so I did a little investigating and have some new results.

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Using a Samsung 950 Pro SSD this adapter WILL boot my T7610:  EZDIY-FAB PCI Express M.2 SSD NGFF PCIe Card to PCIe 3.0 x4 M2 Adapter ------------------------------------

>This type of adapter will NOT boot the Samsung 950 Pro: Asus Hyper M.2 X4 Mini PCI-e

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> Next I tried my Samsung 960 Pro M.2 SSD and cannot get the Dell Ultra Speed, the EZ-DIY or Asus Mini to act as a boot drive.  The 960 Pro can be seen and Win 10 can be installed but it will not boot using the same technique I use with the 950 Pro SSD, baffling.

Summary:

1. The Samsung 950 Pro will act as a boot drive with the Dell and EZ-DYI PCIe M.2 adapters.

2. I cannot find a way to make the Samsung 960 Pro to act as the boot drive with any adapter.  I wonder what procedure I'm missing.

Hi,

Please let me know:

1. What model of SSD NVMe M.2 used?

2. Here is the link to buy Generic NVME Adapter Converter Card, which can use with the SSD NVMe M.2.

Thanks for your support!

Re: MountainHN

1. The only SSD I've been successful in using is a Samsung 950 Pro M.2 SSD. 

2.  I am currently booting from this:  EZDIY-FAB PCI Express M.2 SSD NGFF PCIe Card to PCIe 3.0 x4 M2 Adapter

(I can also use the Dell Ultra Speed adapter)

sorry the delay was on vacation.

yes I'm using EZDIY-FAB PCI Express M.2 SSD NGFF PCIe Card to PCIe 3.0 x4 M2 Adapter

its cheap and works great. no any problems.  $8 ebay

im using Samsung pro 950 512gb and im very happy!!!!!

the the Dell Ultra Speed adapter its optional if you want use more Storage.

Hi all, 

I started a thread before telling my experience in details on how to make NVMe boot available for PC without CPU/motherboard/BIOS support, by the Clover boot loader method. See if it helps.

Precision T5600 PCIe boot success

would you please provide some detail on how you did it 

So setup the usb drive as the boot device then it automatically uses the pciE adapter card to initialize the post? I'm not sure where this switch happens could you elaborate how going from usb to pciE adapter is selected. 

Hi @Valient6 ,

Once boot from the Clover USB drive, it will lead to a selection menu that you can choose your bootable NVMe drive as the boot drive:

Someone even made a video for the whole process. See if it helps.

We have an additional success story, though it will be of very limited use. Recently inherited a minimally configured T7610 (1 ES-2603 v2, 8 meg ram, AMD Firepro V4900, 500 gig Seagate HD) and read through this and all other similar threads. Of course Samsung 950's really can't be found now, but several mentioned there were a few other early M2 NVMe sticks that had legacy bios. Then someone mentioned one that made me sit up... Anyway acquired an Ezdiy card (yes all slightly missized: easiest fix: detach bracket 2 screws, use a 1/8" chainsaw file and make each hole in the card oval so now card can be pressed up against the bracket, then fits perfectly) mount my M.2, clone my UEFI boot drive, insert in Slot 3 (Slot 1 occupied by Creative SB Recon3D audio card). Remove original boot drive, reboot...and it all just works, Now the bad news: Plextor M8Se drives (in my case a 256gb stick) work as perfectly as the 950...but even more obscure. I'm amazed I had one...sheer luck. Originally a boot drive for a i5 Ivy Bridge build I did just about the same time Dell made this 7610...

Hello

could you please share how you finally did it ? I am trying to do the same using a clone of a working and booting windows. I read that I should maybe try to change the boot sectors to GPT instead of MBR. I’ll try

best