PCIe samsung 970 EVO not recognized while installing Win 10

This post has some ideas for you:

https://www.dell.com/community/Precision-Fixed-Workstations/5820-Tower-Win-10-installed-on-wrong-drive/m-p/6153254#M816

More info for you:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/614150/cant-format-ssd-as-gpt-partition-when-installing-windows-10/

https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General-Read-Only/Does-the-Dell-T7910-support-M-2-PCIe-3-0-x4-SSD/td-p/4671782/page/2

They say there are some management between MBR and GPT initialization. However, it is not stated which kind of management they are.

I need to read these carefully, then, I will try.

They give another good info.

Thanks

I tried the following, and also the issue is not working:

case 1:

UEFI enabled

legacy boot option disabled

secure boot enabled

sata option is RAID on

boot from UEFI USB installation media

when reaching to the selection of drive to instal, there is also no drive available

at this moment, when using diskpart tool, and use list disk, the required Samsung drive is not listed.

case 2:

UEFI enabled

legacy boot option enabled

secure boot disabled

sata option is RAID on

boot from UEFI USB installation media

when reaching to the selection of drive to instal, there is also no drive available

at this moment, when using diskpart tool, and use list disk, the required Samsung drive is not listed.

since diskpart is not seeing the drive, the I cannot follow to the next steps.

Any other suggestions please?

I would like to know if the specific PCIe slot may leads to such situation.

In the current experimentation, I inserted the NVMe adapter in PCIe slot 1 which is x8 slot.

Thanks

If you have only one NVMe M.2 SSD you should use Socket # 0 of the Dell Ultra Speed 80G5N PCIe to SSD M.2 Interposer card and it should be inserted in a PCIe 16x slot on the motherboard.

Note: So far I have been successful booting with a single Samsung 950 Pro in PCIe slots #1 (8X) or #2 (16X) of my T7610 with two different Interposer cards.

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I have not been able to boot my T7610 from a Samsung 960 Pro and have not tried any other NVMe SSD's yet.  

I don't know if your T7920 will boot from a Samsung 970 Pro, it should but I don't understand why some are able to make it work and others cannot.  The various model Samsung SSD's use different Controllers, see picture.

I think this is the reason.

From my experience with this issue, I can make the following summaries:

1. NVMe may not detected because of Intel RST driver lack. I downloaded the latest version on both Intel and Dell RST and extracted them on the installation USB, trying to update the driver at the instant of selecting the disk to install Windows 10 on. However, no driver was usefule.

2. The initialization of the NVMe drive as GPT and UEFI BIOS setting. The issue is only with this kind of initialization. I tried to install with MBR and Legacy, and the installation was successful.

3. Selecting suitable PCIe slot. I tried both slot #0 (8x) and #3 (16x) and the same issue persisting. My Vedio Card is on PCIe slot #2.

4. If the interposer card is suitable for making the installed NVMe SSD bootable. I do not have such good experience with such cards, so that, I cannot make a definitive conclusion that this card is the reason for this issue. However, As I was able to install Win. 10 with Legacy option, then, I do not think the interposer card is the cause of such issue.

5. I also tried to install with various options of SATA (RAID0 or non RAID), secure boot/non-secure boot. But also these variations was not helping to recognize the Disk at the moment of selecting disk to install on.

6. Also, I tried DISKPART tool at the time of installation, but the disk is not listed in the list disk command if the settings are UEFI.

Do you think the following procedure will work?

( make BIOS as legacy and the disk initialization as GPT, install the windows, and after the installation completes, I rechange the BIOS option from legacy to UEFI).

Thanks

Are you running Win10 Build #16299, it is supposed to help. 

I am currently booting from a Samsung NVMe 950 Pro M.2 on an EZDIY-FAB PCI Express M.2 SSD NGFF PCIe Card.  With this combo I have booted from a 4x, 8x and 16x PCIe slot. (My Dell interposer card is retired, although it certainly worked fine.)  My BIOS is set to UEFI only, Legacy Options Disabled, Secure Boot Enabled, Windows Boot Mgr as the only Boot Sequence option (I could add my 950 Pro as a Boot option here but it doesn't seem necessary).

I have another brand of interposer card that did the same thing as you are describing, the SSD was not available to install Win 10 Pro using conventional methods.  I believe the type and configuration of some of these different cards will not work with our Dell UEFI SMBIOS v2.7-2.9 and hardware.  Microsoft also has some info available about UEFI and Boot .

It has been trial and error for me during this process and so far I cannot make a Samsung NVMe 960 Pro M.2 operate as a Boot drive, period.  It can be recognized, Win10 Pro installed and used as a storage drive but never as Boot. I have sure learned a lot in these experiments and will continue to explore how these other M.2's  might be made Bootable.

Assuming you are installing Windows-10 Pro 64bit.

UEFI-Mode
SecureBoot Enabled (if using Microsoft authorized or blessed media). Otherwise, leave it off for now.

Only SSD attached/connected.
- SSD should completely RAW and uninitialized. DiskPart "clean" it if you have to.

If AHCI-Mode (preferred), it should see the SSD without other intervention.

If RAID-Mode, you have to Load the Intel F6-Driver at Windows "select install drive" step.

Install Windows and do First-Time Setup.

More details here:

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/M-2-NVMe-bootable-options/td-p/6073037

EDIT: OK, I added above info to that post (been meaning to for a while now). 

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@Hassan-WS wrote:

 

       b) create ISO file and use Rufus to create bootable USB. see following link (I tried also both NTFS and Fat32 formatted USB)

 

I don't think anything created with Rufus can be booted with SecureBoot Enabled.

If you can stay in UEFI with SecureBoot disabled, that is ok for now.

However, if you have to drop back to Legacy-Mode, that is unfortunate, and not usually a good way to install your base OS (because ultimately, you want it running in UEFI Mode).

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@grysql wrote:

 

I have not been able to boot my T7610 from a Samsung 960 Pro and have not tried any other NVMe SSD's yet.  

I don't know if your T7920 will boot from a Samsung 970 Pro, it should but I don't understand why some are able to make it work and others cannot.  The various model Samsung SSD's use different Controllers, see picture.

 

 

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If machine accepts PCIe/NVMe SSD, any famous-maker (Samsung, Intel, Kingston) one will work. NVMe is an industry standard (like SATA).

The SSD's Controller does not matter.

Setup can be tricky sometimes.

Re: Tesla1856 ;
"Setup can be tricky" - Aye, you can say that again!  :Wink:

Thanks for all the great info. Your method of installing Win10 and the BIOS settings are what worked for my Samsung 950 Pro and it is now my Boot drive.
However, when I tried the exact same procedure with a newer Samsung 960 Pro it would not Boot, it's there as storage, Samsung Magician sees it, I can clone it, it shows in Disk Management and Device Manager - it just won't act as a Boot drive.
To be sure, I have tried again following your instructions using my Dell Interposer card and a ‘raw’ Samsung 960 M.2 SSD for a clean install of Win 10 Pro.
My computer is a Dell T7610, SMBIOS 2.7, BIOS A17, Win10 Build 16299,

1. Disconnect all other hard drives.
2. BIOS set to UEFI, ACHI, SecureBoot disabled, all other setting set to Default.
3. Connect only the SSD (using Dell add-in card) to PCIe 16x slot.
4. Prior to this I created a new up-to-date Media Creation USB flash-drive, connected it and pressed F-12 to Boot.
5. At the Win10 Boot screen I pressed Shift-F10 and used Diskpart to ‘clean’ the Samsung 960, exited. I continued the Win10 install, the 960 is seen as proper size with only one partition. The 1st Win10 installation finished and the T7610 re-started - there should be additional Win10 install finishing touches at this point but instead: a black screen shows ‘Alert! Hard Drive not found; To continue press F1 key, To change setup option press F2 key or To run onboard diagnostics press F5 key. 
Pressing F1 takes me back to the USB install drive for another install of Win10. Pressing F2 takes me to the BIOS, the Boot Sequence shows ‘Windows Boot Manager’ and the ‘UEFI USB install drive’. If I exit it reopens the Win10 USB Install procedure. So after a couple tries I manually added a Boot Option in BIOS and named it ’960' and exited, no joy, right back to the USB Win10 install drive. Note: in BIOS the add-in card/960 is seen as a Mass Storage device in PCIe Slot #2.

From this I decided to give F12 a try, the newly named ’960’ Boot option is shown under the UEFI heading so I selected it, enter and am sent back to ‘Alert Hard drive not found screen, full circle.

Summary: A ‘clean’ Samsung 960 Pro that had Win10 partially installed from a new Media Creation USB drive will not Boot following the above procedure. With the Dell card/960 combo in place and inserting a Samsung 950/add-in card in the adjoining PCIe 8x PCIe slot the computer boots right up from the 950. From there I go to Disk Management and the 950 is shown as Disk ‘0’ and the 960 is seen as Disk ‘1’, both healthy and partitioned correctly.
The 960 will not finish the full Win10 install or boot.  I must be missing something.

950 Disk 0, 960 Disk 1