[SOLVED] Can't get Windows to detect my new M.2 drive

[mahmoth]

Hi all,

I just purchased a Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 SSD which I installed in my existing build (MSI X99A Tomahawk with I7-6800K CPU) to act as an extra secondary drive but I cannot get either Windows or the BIOS to detect it.

I have found some threads similar to the issue I'm having but I am still at a loss.
Am I understanding correctly that the M.2 SSD cannot be a secondary drive and can only be the boot drive? If not, what am I doing wrong?

Thanks for your help

 

[USAFRet]

That drive can absolutely be just a secondary drive. It does NOT have to be the OS drive.

You DO need to install the Samsung driver for it.

Tool & Software Download | Samsung Semiconductor Global

Download various software related to your product, including Samsung Magician, designed for use with Samsung's memory products, and find related information.

www.samsung.com

 

[mahmoth]

Thanks for your reply.

I tried that. I downloaded the driver but it won't install. Says "Samsung NVMe device not connected. Please connect the device" and exits. (I double checked that it's correctly installed).

 

[USAFRet]

Well, the specs for that board say it supports that drive type

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/X99A-TOMAHAWK/Specification

 

[mahmoth]

Yes I know. That's why I felt confident purchasing it

 

[mahmoth]

Anybody else got an idea?
I read somewhere else something about it working (for my MoBo at least) only with UEFI and not BIOS, but that's beyond my understanding

 

[mahmoth]

Here is what the specs for my motherboard say:

• 1 x M.2 slot (Key M)*
Supports up to PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA 6Gb/s
Supports 2242/ 2260/ 2280/ 22110 storage devices

The specs for the drive say:

INTERFACE
PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3

Could there be something there? The drive is NVMe but the board expects SATA?

 

[USAFRet]

Here is what the specs for my motherboard say:


The specs for the drive say:


Could there be something there? The drive is NVMe but the board expects SATA?

That board and port can take either.

 

[mahmoth]

Is NVMe just synonymous with PCIe Gen3 x4

Should I conclude that the drive was DOA?

 

[USAFRet]

Is NVMe just synonymous with PCIe Gen3 x4

Should I conclude that the drive was DOA?

Mostly, yes. For your 970, yes.

DOA? Seems to be.

 

[mahmoth]

UPDATE: It now works. The drive appeared in the Disk Management utility and I could initialize it. I did a couple things so I'm not sure which one fixed the issue but I assume it was updating the BIOS to a more recent version even though, if I enter the BIOS, the drive is still nowhere to be found.

HOWEVER, it is running very slowly. I installed the Samsung NVMe driver; no improvement.
Here are the results of running winsat on the drive.

Windows System Assessment Tool
> Running: Feature Enumeration ''
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: Storage Assessment '-drive  h -ran -read'
> Run Time 00:00:00.28
> Running: Storage Assessment '-drive  h -seq -read'
> Run Time 00:00:04.34
> Running: Storage Assessment '-drive  h -seq -write'
> Run Time 00:00:03.95
> Running: Storage Assessment '-drive  h -flush -seq'
> Run Time 00:00:00.63
> Running: Storage Assessment '-drive  h -flush -ran'
> Run Time 00:00:00.67
> Dshow Video Encode Time                      0.00000 s
> Dshow Video Decode Time                      0.00000 s
> Media Foundation Decode Time                 0.00000 s
> Disk  Random 16.0 Read                       599.92 MB/s          8.4
> Disk  Sequential 64.0 Read                   800.81 MB/s          8.3
> Disk  Sequential 64.0 Write                  543.99 MB/s          8.1
> Average Read Time with Sequential Writes     0.070 ms          8.9
> Latency: 95th Percentile                     0.154 ms          8.9
> Latency: Maximum                             0.179 ms          8.9
> Average Read Time with Random Writes         0.066 ms          8.9

I've read some stuff about PCI lanes but the only other PCIe peripheral connected is a GTX 1080 ti

EDIT: I guess as far as the title of the thread is concerned, this issue is resolved. Takeaway: update your BIOS