[SOLVED] before first restart of Windows install, it no longer lists SSD as a boot drive.

[Jiranik]

Hello, I've got my hands on pre-built someone threw away and wanted to tinker around and see if i can restore the PC. It originally had 1x4GB RAM stick and 1TB HDD which i changed as you can see in specs listed below.
I restored back-up bios (effectivelly set bios to default) and once checked peripherals to see if they are damaged i started clean win10 install.

Now to the issue i got:
I got bootable USB win10 install via MS MCT and plugged it in. Made sure to have only SSD and USB plugged in and started the install. First part has been successful (win setup is now installed on my ssd) but after first reboot bios can't see my SSD. I later tried doing the same with original 1TB HDD without any issues. Bios has both UEFI and Legacy support.

I followed up by looking for people with same issue and i actually found a lot of results that matched my case but most of them were abandoned without really solving the issue and leads were dead ends:
Exact same issue as me but no follow-up to last message's solution
Again windows install fails to recognize SSD but this time without any follow-up at all.
Simillar to my issue but the person who submitted closed the case by buying different hardware.
This one closes the case by sending me to now non-existent tutorial.

Most of Bios settings tutorials above suggested were already exhausted. The only ones left are SATA drivers which i thought were too far off from what might be my issue.
So does anyone have an idea what ever could i be doing wrong?

PC specs here:

• CPU: i5-3470 4core
• 8GB RAM
• GPU: integrated intel graphics
• mobo: Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H
• SSD: Samsung 250GB EVO

Thank you
Jiranik
Edit: SSD is NVME with SATA3 adaptor and HDD is SATA2

 

[Lutfij]

The first thing I'd do if I were you is check and see what BIOS version you're currently on. Cross reference it with the BISO page of the motherboard courtesy of Gigabyte. I'd also try and source all the latest drivers manually and store them on a pen drive(not used for the bootable USB installer creation. Then once you're on the latest BISO version, set the SATA controller to AHCI, disable CSM, Secure boot and Fast Boot and have the USB as the primary boot device to reinstall the OS. Once the OS is installed, copy the drivers you previously sourced from the pen drive to the desktop. Install any and/or all drivers in an elevated command, i.e, Right click installer>Run as Administrator.

You forgot to mention the make and model of the PSU in your build. Is the system your neighbors? Perhaps ask him/her why he/she threw it out of the household?

 

[bignastyid]

1. Motherboards bios does not support booting from NVME, only SSD it will boot to is a Sata SSD.
2. NVME and Sata are incompatible. There is no NVMe to Sata adapter. There are M.2 to pci-e adapter cards that would allow the board to see the NVMe drive but it would not fix the booting from NVMe issue. There are also M.2 to sata adapters but these do not work with NVMe M.2 drives.

Which exact SSD do you have(there a multiple EVO models)? What model is the adapter you are using?

 

[Jiranik]

1. Motherboards bios does not support booting from NVME, only SSD it will boot to is a Sata SSD.
2. NVME and Sata are incompatible. There is no NVMe to Sata adapter. There are M.2 to pci-e adapter cards that would allow the board to see the NVMe drive but it would not fix the booting from NVMe issue. There are also M.2 to sata adapters but these do not work with NVMe M.2 drives.

Which exact SSD do you have(there a multiple EVO models)? What model is the adapter you are using?

Hello,
Thanks for quick reply.

Sorry! The adapter i used was the M.2 to PCI-e i should've described more in detail. Also... Could you elaborate on why it won't fix the boot issue? I assumed that since it makes the SSD visible, it can also boot from it.
I have 960 EVO NVMe M.2 SSD 250GB.

 

[Jiranik]

The first thing I'd do if I were you is check and see what BIOS version you're currently on. Cross reference it with the BISO page of the motherboard courtesy of Gigabyte. I'd also try and source all the latest drivers manually and store them on a pen drive(not used for the bootable USB installer creation. Then once you're on the latest BISO version, set the SATA controller to AHCI, disable CSM, Secure boot and Fast Boot and have the USB as the primary boot device to reinstall the OS. Once the OS is installed, copy the drivers you previously sourced from the pen drive to the desktop. Install any and/or all drivers in an elevated command, i.e, Right click installer>Run as Administrator.

You forgot to mention the make and model of the PSU in your build. Is the system your neighbors? Perhaps ask him/her why he/she threw it out of the household?

Hello,
Thanks for replying so fast!

• The PSU is FSP400-60HCN 400w
• Bios I have now is F14b while the newest is F15. In description it lists some SATA compatibility improvements so i'll try flashing Bios.
• No unfortunately i cannot verify why they threw it out by asking them but before i restored it, windows had numerous issues with original HDD and was constantly spewing out errors about not being able to access some parts of the system even when it was being turned off. No issues remained after i wiped the HDD.

 

[bignastyid]

The adapter will make it usable as storage but not as a boot device if the bios doesn't support booting from NVMe and your older board does not support booting from NVMe.

Iirc some Z97 boards were some of the first Intel boards to get NVMe support but wasn't a mainstream feature till the 100 series.

 

[Jiranik]

The adapter will make it usable as storage but not as a boot device if the bios doesn't support booting from NVMe and your older board does not support booting from NVMe.

Iirc some Z97 boards were some of the first Intel boards to get NVMe support but wasn't a mainstream feature till the 100 series.

Aha I see!

Thanks! I learned something new today.
Marking as solved!