M.2 SSD Problem

[Matt_194]

Hi Everyone,

Im having a little problem with some M.2 SSDs. I currently have the Samsung SM951 128GB AHCI SSD as my boot drive and I wanted to upgrade it to the Samsung EVO 960 250GB NVMe SSD.

Along with the SSD, i bought an M.2 to PCI-E Adapter because my motherboard has only 1 m.2 slot.

I wanted to clone my drive across to the new one with Macrium.

The problem is when I have Samsung SSD plugged into a slot, my pc gets to the black screen with a flashing underscore and doesnt get any further. Please let me know if im supposed to wait at that point!

When I unplug the Samsung SSD, my pc boots fine.

Does anyone know why my pc isnt booting when both SSDs are plugged in?

Thanks for the help in advance!

Motherboard: MSI X99A SLI Krait Edition
CPU: i7-5820k
Drives: Samsung SM951 AHCI M.2 SSD (128GB)
Samsung EVO 960 NVMe SSD (250GB)
+ other SSDs and HDDs

 

[Dugimodo]

Can you get into the BIOS and check the boot order? it's possible the add in card is becoming the default boot device when you install it.

 

[Matt_194]

I have already been into the BIOS and completely removed the new SSD from the boot order and it still gets stuck at the flashing underscore

 

[panathas]

1) Make sure that you have the latest BIOS version installed.
2) Try resetting the CMOS.
3) Maybe something is going on with the M2 PCIe adapter. It may be a compatibility issue between the adapter and the SSD or the adapter is simply bad.
4) First try installing the new SSD to the motherboard M2 slot and then use the PCIe adapter with the old SSD. That way you'll know whether that PCIe adapter is working or not.

 

[Matt_194]

Okay, My BIOS is up to date, I reset the CMOS and I tried my old SSD in the adapter and everything booted up fine.

But when I had my EVO in the M2 slot, i got stuck at the underscore again 🙁.

I have just googled and there is an evo 960 driver for the M2, could that be the reason it is getting stuck??

 

[Paul NZ]

You have to configure the BIOS to use an NVME. If one of the BIOS updates support it.

So you can add drivers in the BIOS

So you can install on it then boot from it

Hope you're installing Win10 since thats got generic drivers for it. WIn7 needs 2 updates to support NVME

And you'll have to slipstream them in an ISO first to do it

 

[Matt_194]

Okay, will try that now

 

[Paul NZ]

I dont know if it'll work if you cloned a hdd to it

 

[Matt_194]

i havent cloned anything yet, the samsung drive is blank. do you know how to setup the BIOS so it allows NVMe??

I am struggling to find anything

 

[Paul NZ]

Maybe similar to this http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3026681/nvme-ssd-fully-detected-bios-msi-z170a-sli-samsung-950-pro.html