Install Windows 7 x64 on Samsung SM951 m.2 drive!

[Alexandros76]

I have the m/b ASUS X99-PRO/USB3.1 and the m.2 drive Samsung SM951 256GB NVMe.
I spent 3 days trying and trying, reading forums, many people seem to have problem with m.2 drives.
The m.2 drive does not appear in Windows 7 x64 installation. I do everything right as described in tutorials and forums.

I used rufus and created an uefi usb stick fat32, gpt, bootx64.efi, etc. Windows 7 installation starts but no drive appears. I have no other drives connected untill I install windows.

I tried the same with a windows 10 uefi boot and worked... no problems at all, I was able to see the drive and create the required partitions.
Windows 7 seem to need something extra to see the drive....
any help please?

 

[rapidshare3]

News:
GA-Z170N-WIFI
Ssd Samsung SM951 M.2
Bios F6
Bios Option:
Windows 8/10 Features: Other OS
Storage Boot Option UEFI ONLY
Sata Configuration: AHCI

Create a usb key with Alexandros76 guide. After this re-open N-lite and create iso from folder that you have previous made.
Download from gigabyte motherboard page WindowsImageTools for add USB 3.0 driver to Windows 7 Usb.
Put usb, reboot and boot from usb. If windows ask for driver, download from gigabyte motherboard, put on usb and select folder.
Windows 7 Install Flawselly. After doing this, i change some bios parameter for made Raid. Infact, i have two samsung 850 pro in raid 1 mode.
Activate raid in bios, and change storage boot option to legacy. If you not change this parameter, you can't boot from sm951 if raid is activated on another drive. After boot, go to windows and install this driver for sm951 m.2:

Url: https://mega.nz/#!lZ1BBIRb!cw3l3xweOGTny6ZmeIG3VulFrwewJSl9NpieIiUr2XM

This is my benchmark:
http://s7.postimg.org/h3sfve1bf/Test.jpg

Incredibile speed...

Thanks to all from italy!

 

[Alexandros76]

Hello guys and thanks for your good words.
As I have already posted above all this hassle is not needed anymore.
The only thing you need is the Samsung drivers provided from HP (extract them using 7z)

I have already installed Windows 7 using the original .iso and the drivers during installation.
forget all about install.wim etc.
The problem that occurs with windows unable to create a partition easily solved as mentioned above unplug and re-plug usb stick and works.

 

[Dave_21]

It's much easier than this,
Install win7 onto a 2nd regular HD, install the hotfixes
you should now be able to see the M.2 drive O.K.
Clone this install to the M.2 drive, works perfectly... GL

 

[Tanyac]

Hi,

... hopefully when 950 pro is out it's drive will be compatible and better for faster speeds.

... On a related note did anyone try to install Windows 7 x64 onto the new Samsung 950 Pro m.2 drive?

I was chatting with RamCity a few minutes ago as I'm considering purchasing 2 950 Pro NVMe for my Windows 2008 R2 server, and one for my Windows 7 Sp1 X99 system.

It seems that the 950 Pro still requires the steps that have described here.

My question is.... Is the process you have documented the same for Windows 2008 R2 SP1?

thank you.

 

[The Original Ralph]

yes - i've installed win 7 x64 on two 950 PROs in near identical systems. OS was installed on a xp941 in both cases, after installing samsung's NVMe driver and rebooting, then cloned the xp941s to the 950s using samsung's data migration software (took under 10 minutes) - both systems ran perfectly.

Go over to anandtech's memory & storage forum - there's a fairly long thread with a number of posters indicating near identical approach, basically cloning their OS drive (in most cases Sata HDDs or Sata SSDs) using a number of different software - macrium reflect and Gparted Live are two of them. go to about pg 10 in the thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2446603&page=15

Since the clone installation, i tried cloning the 950 to a sata drive (840 EVO) using EaseUS and it would not recognize the 950 PRO. It would recognize it in windows, then when i clikked "proceed" it asked to reboot, i assume in a vs of linux, and once rebooted, the NVMe drive was not on the list and it did not go forward with the cloning.

One interesting part about the samsung data migration software - it would clone to the 950 from the xp941, but when i tried to clone the OS back to the xp941 it would not - only assumption i could make was that the xp941 was an OEM drive and not on the list of "supported" SSDs. But samsung's data migration software would clone to an old 810 SSD (first gen SSD) but also an OEM drive (came out of a Dell laptop). And the 810 is also not on the supported SSD list.

But both systems i cloned have been up and running fine now, one of the for 10 days

fwiw

 

[Alexandros76]

As I said you can simply install Windows 7 as usual and provide the driver during installation, no cloning or other hassle is needed! Not anymore

 

[Sparkler]

As I said you can simply install Windows 7 as usual and provide the driver during installation, no cloning or other hassle is needed! Not anymore

How can i provide the driver during intsallation? Can you please make a short guide?
I tried to include the driver in induvidual ISO with NTLite, but i failed (windows setup hang up). But i have no experience with NTLite at all, maybe i do it wrong.

UP1: I found now this guide, i give it a try (last page): http://download.intel.com/support/ssdc/hpssd/sb/nvme_boot_guide_332098001us.pdf

UP2: I am not able to load the driver from second usb stick. The second stick does not appear in the "browse file" dialog.

UP3: Now i was able to load additional driver (tried many different), but always the message is shown that the driver is already loaded. Installation doesn't work.

UP4: ASUS Z170 A Firmware 1302 with SM951 NVMe still not working

UP5: I come to the install step which asks for driver, but no one of the driver i try works. If i select "show all driver with incompatibility" and at a driver the installation gets freezed.

UP6: Finally i got to the windows 7 install process. After installation i got an error message:
Windows failed to start. A recent hardware of software change might be the cause.
File: ifM63x64.sys
Info: Windows failed to load a required file Because is missing or corrupt.
So next try...

UP7: i builded a windows 7 image with all updates (general, security) with "windows hotfix downloader" and Samsung NMVe driver. Through installation i had asus driver cd in dvd drive. While installation i added PCI+NVMe driver again with extra USB stick (used "back and forward" trick, for refreshing device list). NOW IT WORKS!

 

[Dave_21]

In my case, NUC5i7, I can now do normal install of Windows 7 & Linux in Legacy mode.
The problem was the BIOS, confirmed by Intel, I needed to go back 1 revision.
now SM951 will allow installation without issue, downside is I loose Infra-red

Hopefully a new BIOS will give Infra-red back.

 

[Miky060]

I am going to install Windows 7 on a SM951 in next days (on a ASROCK Z97 extreme6). I am reading this thread since weeks and thanks to Alexandros76 help I did create the needed pen drive as explained..

Now that it seems all this is no more needed I want to try the easier way first (just start a normal Windows iso installation and make it load the needed driver). But I still have some questions. I hope someone will help me because this will surely help also the others that will come here:

1 - Which driver is better?

The HP one (1.4.7.6 Rev.A - 15 giu 2015):
http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=wk_149537_1&swEnvOid=4059#

Or the one that Samsung released (1.4.7.16) for the 950Pro that seems to work good also on the SM951? You can find the "pure driver" around the web. Just an example link:
https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21ADjpDJErkXTLcUc&id=5014229B9E752333%2130939&cid=5014229B9E752333

2 - Which is the best way to format the disk, GPTT or just MBR?

3 - Is it better to install Windows 7 in UEFI mode or just CSM Legacy Mode?

4 - Last but not least.. When everything will be installed and working is there a way to make an image of the installation and restore it on the disk if needed? I usually do this by using an Hiren's boot pen drive and Norton Ghost But I don't think it would see the SM951 for obvious reasons.. Any ideas?

Thanks a lot for your time.

 

[chaotic_cannon]

Hi All, I have a very similar problem and I am lost to be honest. So I would like to direct this to 3 users since they have most of the info or similar situtation

@Alexandros76, @ Golden_Orb, @ The Original Ralph

I have 2 Samsung 950 Pro NVME drives. I have an i5 6600k with 2 different MOBO's. Yes 2 different ones since I cant get either to work. Trying to install Win7. Want a RAID0 drive from the 2 x 950Pros

I started out with a Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 board. I installed the 2 SSD's in the M2 slots. No other drives or anything. Updated to latest BIOS and still the drives are NOT shown in the BIOS drive information menu area at all. When I look in the boot menu only 1 of the 2 drives is ever shown. I take one 950 Pro out, the BIOS still sees 1 (that one). I take that one out and put the other back in the opposite M2 slot. The BIOS still only sees the 1 drive. I put both in, and the BIOS only ever shows the 1 in the boot menu.

I screw around with Gigabyte USB3.0 tool (since the 100 series boards wont read usb thumb drives unless they are USB 3.0) and finally get Win7 installer to run, guess what, no drives seen. Go back into the BIOS and the drives are still not shown. After 4 days of attempts and 5 days of waiting on Gigabyte tech support to reply to my support tickets (which they still have not acknowledged after a week) I gave up and switched to a different board.

Got a MSI Z170A Gaming M7 board. Loaded into the BIOS, changed the SATA config to RAID. No drives shown. MSI forums are actually helpful. Went in and found that I have to tell the BIOS to enable the WIn8.1/10 option (disable the Win7 boot option). Now the 2 950 Pros are visible in the BIOS. Still in the BIOS I enable RAID0, create the RAID volume and reboot the PC to go back into the BIOS to enable one last setting that appears only after setting up the RAID.

However once I enable Win8.1/10 boot option on this board, the POSt no longer works and the boot does not get as far as the "hit DEL key to enter the BIOS" screen.

I get a EFI Shell DOS prompt instead. It lists this:
----------
EFI Shell Version 2.4 (5.11)
Current running mode 1.1.2
Device Mapping Table
blk0 : Blockdevice - Alias (null)
PciRoot (0x0)/Pci(0x1B,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/Unit(0x1)
blk1 : Blockdevice - Alias (null)
PciRoot (0x0)/Pci(0x1B,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/Unit(0x1)

Press ESC in 5 seconds to skip startup.nsh, any other key to continue.

Shell>
----------------
It goes no further. Cant even get into the Win7 loader. I have to type "EXIT" and it auto loads me into the BIOS. I have mixed and trial and error settings. Even went as far as hauling all the drives out of the MOBO. So to be clear the MOBO has no physical hard drives of any type on board. On this MIS board, as soon as I enable Win8.1/10 option and reboot, the Shell menu comes up.

So I think I have to force back to trying the Gigabyte board (even though their technical support is literally non existent).

So my questions are:
- Is the main post above from Alexandros76 dated October 7, 2015 5:20:46 PM have everything laid out from start to finish? There is a lot of posts past the main one with more information and I am getting lost. Want to install Win7, which I see I have to do the Win10 criss cross with the loaders. I am not even sure how to get the Win10 iso file since all I have is the Win7 installer.

- When people were setting up this Win7/Win10 hack, were the drives configured as RAID0 or a single drive only?

- Has someone run the 950 Pros in RAID? I want to set up RAID 0 from the start.... I was reading above and someone mentioned something about setting up differently and then using magician to copy info over and then drop the 950's over to the PC. So in that case are they RAID0??? Were they seen in the BIOS or just windows?

I find everything above a little overwhelming and hoping someone can break it down for me please....


For example:

2. Extract the Windows 7.iso to a folder.

If you are installing in UEFI mode, check efi/boot there should be a bootx64.efi. If not grab it from a current installation of Windows 7 x64. C:\Windows\Boot\EFI\bootmgfw.efi copy/paste and rename it to bootx64.efi.

Which directory inside the Win7 ISO folder structure does it go in? There is a separate efi folder, boot folder, etc. Under the efi folder there is nothing but another folder called microsoft and in that another folder called boot?!?! So which folder?


thanks

 

[chaotic_cannon]

bump.... hoping to get a reply

 

[Miky060]

Hoping to get some replies me too..

 

[The Original Ralph]

GSP1RMCULXF, for whatever reason, is what my copy of windows 7 was labeled when installed on the USB flash drive

 

[mrmindlink]

Thanks Alexandros76, your solution was most helpful...

-- Asus Z170-Pro with 256GB Samsung 950 Pro M.2 --

In my case, as mylastknight indicated, I needed both the boot.wim and setup.exe from the Windows 10.iso

Also, in STEP 2, I had to add a boot folder for the bootx64.efi file. My Win7.iso has efi\microsoft\boot... it did not work when I put the file in that boot folder (or I messed something up along the way...) so I made it look like this efi\boot\bootx64.efi (leaving the efi\Microsoft\boot alone) and it worked; finally;-)

Thanks again for all you effort Alexandros76; you too mylastknight!!!

-- ATTO ~900MB/s write and ~2200MB/s reads; man these drives are fast --

 

[pauljo]

I am going to install Windows 7 on a SM951 in next days (on a ASROCK Z97 extreme6). I am reading this thread since weeks and thanks to Alexandros76 help I did create the needed pen drive as explained..

Now that it seems all this is no more needed I want to try the easier way first (just start a normal Windows iso installation and make it load the needed driver). But I still have some questions. I hope someone will help me because this will surely help also the others that will come here:

1 - Which driver is better?

The HP one (1.4.7.6 Rev.A - 15 giu 2015):
http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=wk_149537_1&swEnvOid=4059#

Or the one that Samsung released (1.4.7.16) for the 950Pro that seems to work good also on the SM951? You can find the "pure driver" around the web. Just an example link:
https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21ADjpDJErkXTLcUc&id=5014229B9E752333%2130939&cid=5014229B9E752333

2 - Which is the best way to format the disk, GPTT or just MBR?

3 - Is it better to install Windows 7 in UEFI mode or just CSM Legacy Mode?

4 - Last but not least.. When everything will be installed and working is there a way to make an image of the installation and restore it on the disk if needed? I usually do this by using an Hiren's boot pen drive and Norton Ghost But I don't think it would see the SM951 for obvious reasons.. Any ideas?

Thanks a lot for your time.

1. Either driver fine, but keep updating to new rev when installed for improvement

2 and 3. Most mb require uefi for nvme and tha means gpt format. Use a clean disk, diskpart clean if not already and windows install will handle partitions and formatting.

4. Windows build in backup and create backup system partition works a treat.can also create a uefi bootable dvd system repair disk.

Hope this helps

 

[GeorgeMihaiTanase]

After a long week of desperation and anger I did the impossible..... Installed and booted Windows 7 x64 on Samsung SM951 NVMe !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was looking and looking all over the internet for others who might have found a solution but nothing, am I the first who did it?

Installing and booting Windows 7 on this drive simply is impossible there is no driver, no workaround in BIOS settings.
With windows 8.1 or 10 however it works but I hate them so... for everyone else out there who want to stick with Windows 7 there is a solution but it's not simple.

You have to integrate a Microsoft hotfix in installation so you can boot Windows.
Unfortunatelly you can't do the same with setup. Instead and simpler is to use Windows 10 setup installation which is updated and contains NVMe driver. It works perfectly.

Keep in mind the native driver is not the best but it works, the SM951 is ultra fast anyway, hopefully when 950 pro is out it's drive will be compatible and better for faster speeds.


What you need:

Windows 7 SP1 x64.iso

Windows 10.iso

Microsoft hotfix https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2990941

NTlite https://www.ntlite.com/download/


First request and download the hotfix, e-mail arrives instantly with a link.

1. Download and install NTlite (or other similar you prefer)

2. Extract the Windows 7.iso to a folder.

If you are installing in UEFI mode, check efi/boot there should be a bootx64.efi. If not grab it from a current installation of Windows 7 x64. C:\Windows\Boot\EFI\bootmgfw.efi copy/paste and rename it to bootx64.efi.

3. Using WinRAR or 7-zip extract the Microsoft hotfix.exe file.

4. Run NTlite and open the iso folder.
You will see 2 folders your current windows and 2nd the iso folder open and choose the version you want to install, home, ultimate etc. and press load, or right click load. It takes sometime..

4.1 Go to updates and add package file. Add the extracted hotfix Windows6.1-KB2990941-v3-x64.msu
(for experienced users: you can add more updates if you want to avoid downloading the huge list of updates everytime you install windows 7 important to keep install.wim under 4GB due to UEFI/fat32 limitation)

[strike]Go to post-setup and add command
1st field type reg
2nd field : "HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main"
/v DisableFirstRunCustomize /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

(this step is required because sometimes customized installs of Windows cause the IE to show the welcome screen everytime you open it.)[/strike]
(the above not required after all, it affects the installation only if you add an updated version of IE)


4.2 Go to Apply press Start and wait to finnish.
When it's done close NTlite and go to iso folder and open sources folder.
Delete boot.wim and setup.exe

5. Open Windows 10.iso with winrar and extract the boot.wim to your sources folder of Windows 7.

6. Copy all contents of iso folder of Windows 7 on a usb drive.

Plug, boot and install Windows 7 !!!

Hello there! I need help please! I followed all your steps, but i have a error while i try to install Windows 7 Ultimate.

I have this laptop : MSI GE72 Apache Pro and y buy this ssd hardrive: Samsung SM951 256GB AHCi Model: MZHPV256HDGL-00000

I can install only Windows 10, when i try to install windows 7 on this harddrive, it tells me that windows cant´t install Windows 7 on this drive.

I follow your steps but i can´t do it work.

Any idea what might happen ? Please! I don´t like Windows 10

Sorry for my bad english.

 

[GigaTech]

GA-Z170X-UD3 (and other Z170 motherboards)
i7-7600K
Samsung SM951 NVMe (MZVPV512HDGL-00000)

Trying to install windows 10, receive a message saying something like 'missing driver'

GigaByte Support ticket, 7 day response time that didnt help!!
I wish I could run my IT support company like that!!

The issue also occurs for me with JUST a SATA 500Gb HDD, so not a driver/NVMe issue

I used vLite to integrate the HP NVMe driver and GigaByte util to add the USB drivers to the USB stick


The issue was resolved by:

- boot from the windows 10 (or windows 7, both have the same issue) USB stick.

- once into the setup and have a mouse pointer, before clicking anything, remove the USB drive from the computer.

- click next/continue, the installation wizard will run through until a pop up saying something like 'missing driver'

- plug the USB stick into a DIFFERENT USB port

- Wait for the USB drive to be found by the system (60 seconds or so)

- hit the 'rescan' button and the installation continues


I am a 3rd line Hardware Systems Engineer with over 25 years experience and have never seen this before. This took me over 20 hours to just to get windows installed, with NO help from GigaByte... VERY POOR.

 

[Marsel_1]

Alexandros76 YOU ARE THE MAN SIR!!!! 2 days of trying to get USB 2.0 drive to work with USB 3.0 and nothing worked. After all that I installed windows 10 so that I can install windows 7 PRO via desktop, and have dual Win7/10 boot but ran into this same problem :/ wasted all day till I found your post it worked like a charm. at first I fallowed your steps and tried to install WIn7 via desktop thinking that I can't install via USB2 TO USB3 motherboard, and it didn't work. It worked great when I booted up windows 7 install from the bootup USB Drive with the modified Win 7PRO. It looked like it was installing windows 10, but once done there it was Win7 PRO

Than you sir~!!!

 

[ionuth]

Hello,
When I want to install win7 x64 on samsung 950 pro, the windows don't recognize it. So, I downloaded Samsung NVMe drivers v1.4.7.17 WHQL and put them to a USB drive. But when I try to load them I receive this message:

[/url] upload pics[/img]

I tried Alexandros76 method, but the same problem.
Any ideas how can I solve this problem?

Thank You!

 

[GigaTech]

#ionuth, check out my solution above?

 

[MysticWiz]

Clearly we need a couple of new text books for "Dummies" . How to install Windows 7 Pro/ Ultimate x64 on any M.2 SSD ? How to set up RAID 0 or 1 with SSD's or M.2. (regarding to the latest chip sets - mother boards that came out in 2014 and 2015). The culprit is with the changes that Microsoft and Intel incorporated into the hardware/software/drivers forcing most of us and everyone to use OS Windows 10.
No one wants Windows 10 cause it invades our PRIVACY. Do you know that Microsoft has Hot Fixes for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 so they can spy on you.

^^ Thanks everyone for your effort and support towards this post: Install Windows 7 x64 on Samsung SM951 m.2 drive! ^^

 

[sigma4506]

Thanks alex, i tried to install this back in june last year , my head hurt so much from trying to install this i thought i was getting computor stupid/ i read more articles on this then carter has liver pills, THANKS SO MUCH,

 

[Xafloc]

After a long week of desperation and anger I did the impossible..... Installed and booted Windows 7 x64 on Samsung SM951 NVMe !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've tried this method, along with some of the follow-ups seen below. I am able to successfully boot the Windows 7 USB, which has the updated setup.exe, boot.wim and bootx64.efi files with no issues. However, it never recognizes the Samsung NVMe M.2 drive. I've tried multiple boot modes for the drive. Legacy boot, UEFI, RAID.

It ends the same always, I get the "missing driver" screen that is referenced in a few posts on here. I attempted the solution, to pull the USB and then put in a new slot, then rescan, with no luck. Additionally, I've copied multiple NVMe drivers on the USB, along with slipstreaming them, and I can never get the install to see the Samsung M.2 drive.

Any other thoughts on what to dry?

 

[Harrisonj11315]

likely issue is you need an m.2 driver, google em and find a driver you can install in bootable form or use some freebsd dos bootable and run it, otherwise idk.

 

[zinkkis]

I just burned those HP drivers on dvd. Then on installation i switched dvd and added drivers and voila, my 950 pro m.2 drive came visible.