[SOLVED] Is this PC obsolete? Failed SSD upgrade

[anon-7302]

I built this PC back in 2012:

MOBO: ASUS P8Z77-V LX
CPU: i7-3770k
GPU: GTX 680
RAM: 8GB DDR3
Storage: 2TB SATA HDD

Bootloader got overwritten by a Windows update, it's been gathering dust for years. But I could use a desktop workstation and the hardware should still be decent for non-gaming purposes, right?

I bought an SSD (Samsung 970 EVO) and added it to the PCIe x4 slot with an adapter. Booted it with a live USB, installed linux to the SSD, everything worked fine until rebooting. The SSD will not boot, even if I select it manually and give it top priority, another drive boots instead. If I disconnect all other drives I get an error message telling me the drive is not bootable. Weirdly the boot menu gives the name of the SSD as Optiarc DVD-RW (this is an error with the boot menu, not the disk itself, since fdisk etc get the name right). Things I've tried:

• manually setting boot flags with gparted
• trying multiple linux distros in case one had a software problem
• chrooting into said distros (everything works fine, grub is installed and fully up to date)
• booting from both UEFI and legacy BIOS, partitioning the SSD with both GPT and MBR
• updating mobo BIOS, tried multiple versions including the most updated version (published in 2014)
• disabling UEFI
• disabling legacy BIOS
• disabling legacy BIOS compatibility (doesn't work, GPU firmware only works with legacy BIOS)

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, I wasn't sure where to post it. But I feel like this is a hardware compatibility issue and the mobo is just too old to work with the SSD, and possibly the GPU too seeing as it won't boot with pure UEFI. Is this fixable with a new mobo or should I just build a new PC from scratch?

 

[USAFRet]

Z77 is highly unlikely to be able to boot form an NVMe drive in a PCIe slot.
That functionality didn't come until 2 generations later...the Z97. Even then, only partly.

Sell the 970 EVO and get a regular 2.5" SATA III SSD.
On that system, you'll never notice the difference.

 

[anon-7302]

Thanks for the reply... wow I'm an idiot, can't believe I never stopped to think the DVD drive really was just a DVD drive. One wasted day but at least you saved me £££ on a new PC.

 

[lordmogul]

As someone still running on Z77 I can assure you the platform isn't obsolete. Even far weaker machines will do fine for simple office/multimedia tasks.
But yes, Z77 does not boot over that, luckily the SATA version of the 860 Pro is basically at the same price as the 970 Evo, so you don't even have to move too far of your original plan.