M.2 SSD not recognized bootable drive on z97x-ud3h-bk

[nicholasrinella]

I have just installed an M.2 SSD into my system and loaded a copy of Windows 10 onto it from a USB. The windows installer recognized the drive, however my bios does not. This is obviously an issue because I can't boot from the SSD. When I boot it up, the bios returns the error, "not bootable device detected".

How can I make my bios recognize the SSD?

Motherboard: z97x-ud3h-bk Gigabyte
SSD: Samsung 970 EVO NVMe M.2

Note: my motherboard does support NVMe solid state drives. It just apparently can't recognize them

 

[Calvin7]

The NVMe M.2 drive should be the only storage drive connected.

NVMe SSDs do not appear within the BIOS until Windows creates the system partition with the EFI Boot Sector. Your M.2 SSD contains UEFI driver information within the firmware. By disabling the CSM module Windows will read and utilize the M.2-specific UEFI driver

Go into the bios, under the boot tab there is an option for CSM, make sure it is disabled.

Click on secure boot option below and make sure it is set to other OS, not windows UEFI.

Click on key management and clear secure boot keys.

Insert a USB memory stick with a bootable UEFI USB drive with Windows 10 Setup* on it, USB3 is quicker but USB2 works also. A Windows DVD won’t work unless you’ve created your own UEFI Bootable DVD.

Press F10 to save, exit and reboot.

Windows 10 will now start installing to your NVME drive as it has its own NVME driver built in.

When the PC reboots hit F2 to go back into the BIOS, you will see under boot priority that windows boot manager now lists your NVME drive.

Click on secure boot again but now set it to WIndows UEFI mode.

Click on key management and install default secure boot keys

Press F10 to save and exit and windows will finish the install. Once you have Windows up and running, shutdown the PC and reconnect your other SATA drives.

*How to create a bootable UEFI USB drive with Windows 10 Setup
https://winaero.com/blog/how-to-create-a-bootable-uefi-usb-drive-with-windows-10-setup/

The Windows 10 ISO link is broken in the above. You can obtain the ISO file here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

 

[nicholasrinella]

After following your guide, installing Windows, and finally reopening the bios after windows installed, I still couldn't see my SSD.

All that was showing was the USB with windows setup on it.

Removing the USB and rebooting results in a warning stating "No bootable device is detected"

Windows is properly installed onto the SSD, and when booting from my HDD I can access the contents of the SSD within windows.

It just seems like my BIOS cannot see the SSD for some reason.

 

[USAFRet]

Also, your BIOS may need an update to use that as a boot drive.
I know my Z97 board would, if I wanted to go down that road.

Also, that board disables the SATA 4 & 5 ports, and that NVMe drive will not run at its full native speed.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK-rev-10#sp
"(M.2, SATA Express, and SATA3 4/5 connectors can only be used one at a time. The SATA3 4/5 connectors will become unavailable when an M.2 SSD is installed.)"

"M.2 for SSDs drives with up to 10 Gb/s data transfer"
Natively, that m.2 drive would run at 32Gb/s.

 

[nicholasrinella]

Also, your BIOS may need an update to use that as a boot drive.
I know my Z97 board would, if I wanted to go down that road.

Also, that board disables the SATA 4 & 5 ports, and that NVMe drive will not run at its full native speed.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK-rev-10#sp
"(M.2, SATA Express, and SATA3 4/5 connectors can only be used one at a time. The SATA3 4/5 connectors will become unavailable when an M.2 SSD is installed.)"

"M.2 for SSDs drives with up to 10 Gb/s data transfer"
Natively, that m.2 drive would run at 32Gb/s.

Thank you very much for the replies.

After trying to update my mother board, I received an error for that as well. Something about bios I'd check failed.

Regardless, I think I'll just use it to store games for now, until I think of a solution. And use my hard drive as a boot drive.