Area-51 R5, SSD, U.2 cable, not recognized?

Question

Hello, I have an Area-51 R5. I bought a Samsung NVMe SSD 983 DCT 1.9TB U.2  2.5 inch PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD (Samsung V-NAD 3-bit MLC) MZ-QLB1T9NE. I have not been able to make this SSD drive work? Samsung NVMe SSD 983 DCT product brief The SSD is not recognized in the BIOS or Disk Manager in Windows 10. As you can see in the pictures, I am using the U.2 cable to connect this SSD. I am running the latest BIOS (Alienware_Area_51_R5_2.0.3.exe) from the Area-51 R5 page. I have been reading the forums. Some say an Alienware support technician told him U.2 support is not yet available in the BIOS. Others say they have U.2 drives working. Can anyone tell me how can I make this drive work? I just can´t believe it is not supported. It has all the cables and in the Area-51 R5 specifications it says you can have two working U.2 drives plus the M.2 and three more standard SATA drives. I will be waiting for your help on this problem and any ideas are welcome, or if an Alienware representative read this please help.

speedstep · Accepted Answer

The drive will not be 'seen' due to the drivers for it not native to windows PE or DISKPART.  Once the driver is installed you will see SAMSUNG NVME controller under device manager and DISKMGMT.MSC will be able to partition and format the drive so that you can install to it. https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/ https://s3.ap-northeast-2.amazonaws.com/global.semi.static/SAMSUNG_SSD_Driver_190910/6ES357322A6707A720E1A71EF11A3BE1EED819E011D317626415F0281A78151C/Samsung_NVM_Express_Driver_3.2.exe https://s3.ap-northeast-2.amazonaws.com/global.semi.static/Samsung_NVMeDriver_InstallationGuide.pdf

INXSEX · Accepted Answer

Hello thanks for the solution, with this information and changing the BIOS to AHCI without the need to reinstall Windows 10 that i found in another post, here is the link how to change to AHCI mode without reinstalling Windows:

https://www.dell.com/community/Storage-Drives-Media/Alienware-Area-51m-Samsung-970-Evo-Plus-NVMe-can-t-install-the/m-p/7284690#M338688

Also i made a beginners mistake, when conecting the cables U.2 cables there is one cable Split in two parts the one that goes into the drive itself and another label SATA, i was not conecting the second one, That is why i could not see the drive, when i conected both cables i could format the drive, but i also needed to change to AHCI and then install the drivers.

Thanks to all the people in the forums, you are of great help.

UHR · Answer

I have the same issue, except I have a WD Blue 3D nand SSD.

I have used this Cord

One to the drive and the other to power.

It does see it if I connect it like a standard Drive.

I formatted it There and then tried the u.2 again, No reasd

I don't think I have that OTHER u.2 connection.

How do you see this in bios.

How do you see it in disk partion manger?

ndbb8c · Answer

I'm having the same issue. I bought a cheap Inland 256GB SSD for some extra storage. I've made sure the correct cables are plugged in but I'm unable to see the SSD in disk management.

UHR · Answer

To Clarify   I have a WD Blue 3D nand is that the wrong type?

Alienware Desktops

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