- Jan 15, 2019
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Hello everyone!
I have a Asus Zenbook Pro - UX501JW - and about 4 or 5 weeks ago the SSD broke. The harddisk health (according to Harddisk Sentinel) had been bad for some time now, and now it decided to die. I have tried several M.2 SSD' to replace it with, but I have encountered alot of problems with compatibility during my attempts. I have tried to fix this for 2 weeks, and I'm still back at start after every attempt. I hope someone here could help me shed some light on these problems.
Before it gets suggested, I have done the following:
- Updated BIOS to newest version from Asus website
- Consulted Asus technical support through chat - they didn't know anything more than I did...
- Warranty is out, so sending it to workshop is out of the picture.
At first I purchased a Kingston SA1000M8/480G (480GB) M.2 NVMe SSD.
My initial thought was just to try installing Windows 10, as I didn't bother to even check if it was visible in BIOS. I was sure that if the Windows Installer can see it, then the BIOS should see it for sure. When I initially tried to install it the first time, I got the following message:
So after some research, I discovered that I can use Diskpart.exe while in the installer by using 'Shift + F10' to open CMD.
1. Using 'Clean' in Diskpart, followed by 'Create Partition Primary size=120000', and using 'Activate' did not work.
2. Leaving the disk un-partitioned, and letting the Windows installer partition itself did not work either.
3. Using Clean, followed by 'Create Partition Primary size=120000' and 'Convert GPT' allowed the installer to start. However, it only partition the drive, and completes the first stage of the install. When it's trying to restart to complete the install, it just sends me back to the start of the install again; where I have to choose Keyboard Layout and Language.
So yeah, no matter what I did, I would either be halted from installing Windows 10 on a MBR-disk, or I would be stuck in a install-loop. After speaking to tech-support from the company I purchased the SSD from, we thought that maybe my Asus Zenbook Pro didn't support NVMe SSD'. As far as I could understand, I get stuck in the install-loop because BIOS can't detect the drive to continue the install after the restart - so it just sends me to the USB drive to install again. So I returned the drive, and purchased another one.
This time I purchased a Samsung 970 PRO V-NAND NVMe 512GB (MZ-V7P512BW)
The guy at tech support told me this one should work, as it wasn't NVMe. Turns out he only thought it wasn't NVMe as it didn't say so in the product title on their website. Anyways, I thought I should give it a try.
I had the exact same problems as the Kingston SSD. Either it refuses me to install Windows 10 on a activated MBR drive, or it just sends me into the install-loop. I decided not to return this one yet, and purchase another drive to try before I did anything else.
This time I purchased a Kingston UV500 480GB M.2 SATA SSD
This disk is not a NVMe. The computer was purchased in 2015, and I thought perhaps that SATA was most probably the SSD it had to use.
This time it's not even detected in Diskpart. Neither Diskpart, Windows Installer, or BIOS can see the drive. Now I have no clue what to do. 'ChkDsk' obviously doesn't work as Diskpart can't see the disk.
My horrible limited
***** [Moderator edit to remove profanity. Remember that this is a family friendly forum.]
Aptio Setup Utility BIOS
As this is a notebook (can't figure out any other reason), Asus has provided the computer with litteraly the worst piece of crap BIOS I have ever encountered. There is very limited options to do anything, and the few options I have doesn't seem to make any difference when changed. It's actually so few options that I can list them all for you here:
I have probably read through over 100 different forums of people with similar problems. I still have the Samsung V-NAND NVMe disk here so I can try it again. At least that was detected by the Windows Installer.
As far as I've understood when it comes to M.2 SSD' - there is two types: PCIe and SATA. As the SATA won't show up anywhere, I guess my Asus Notebook only supports PCIe. This means that the old drive was a PCIe - but how did Asus make that work with a BIOS only supporting IDE / AHCI? This is so confusing. I just tried to insert the Samsung 970 PRO M.2 again, and run the installer: exact same thing happened. After using Diskpart to convert it to GPT, it runs the install to restart, then goes back to start.
Any help is much appreciated!
I have a Asus Zenbook Pro - UX501JW - and about 4 or 5 weeks ago the SSD broke. The harddisk health (according to Harddisk Sentinel) had been bad for some time now, and now it decided to die. I have tried several M.2 SSD' to replace it with, but I have encountered alot of problems with compatibility during my attempts. I have tried to fix this for 2 weeks, and I'm still back at start after every attempt. I hope someone here could help me shed some light on these problems.
Before it gets suggested, I have done the following:
- Updated BIOS to newest version from Asus website
- Consulted Asus technical support through chat - they didn't know anything more than I did...
- Warranty is out, so sending it to workshop is out of the picture.
At first I purchased a Kingston SA1000M8/480G (480GB) M.2 NVMe SSD.
My initial thought was just to try installing Windows 10, as I didn't bother to even check if it was visible in BIOS. I was sure that if the Windows Installer can see it, then the BIOS should see it for sure. When I initially tried to install it the first time, I got the following message:
So after some research, I discovered that I can use Diskpart.exe while in the installer by using 'Shift + F10' to open CMD.
1. Using 'Clean' in Diskpart, followed by 'Create Partition Primary size=120000', and using 'Activate' did not work.
2. Leaving the disk un-partitioned, and letting the Windows installer partition itself did not work either.
3. Using Clean, followed by 'Create Partition Primary size=120000' and 'Convert GPT' allowed the installer to start. However, it only partition the drive, and completes the first stage of the install. When it's trying to restart to complete the install, it just sends me back to the start of the install again; where I have to choose Keyboard Layout and Language.
So yeah, no matter what I did, I would either be halted from installing Windows 10 on a MBR-disk, or I would be stuck in a install-loop. After speaking to tech-support from the company I purchased the SSD from, we thought that maybe my Asus Zenbook Pro didn't support NVMe SSD'. As far as I could understand, I get stuck in the install-loop because BIOS can't detect the drive to continue the install after the restart - so it just sends me to the USB drive to install again. So I returned the drive, and purchased another one.
This time I purchased a Samsung 970 PRO V-NAND NVMe 512GB (MZ-V7P512BW)
The guy at tech support told me this one should work, as it wasn't NVMe. Turns out he only thought it wasn't NVMe as it didn't say so in the product title on their website. Anyways, I thought I should give it a try.
I had the exact same problems as the Kingston SSD. Either it refuses me to install Windows 10 on a activated MBR drive, or it just sends me into the install-loop. I decided not to return this one yet, and purchase another drive to try before I did anything else.
This time I purchased a Kingston UV500 480GB M.2 SATA SSD
This disk is not a NVMe. The computer was purchased in 2015, and I thought perhaps that SATA was most probably the SSD it had to use.
This time it's not even detected in Diskpart. Neither Diskpart, Windows Installer, or BIOS can see the drive. Now I have no clue what to do. 'ChkDsk' obviously doesn't work as Diskpart can't see the disk.
My horrible limited
***** [Moderator edit to remove profanity. Remember that this is a family friendly forum.]
Aptio Setup Utility BIOS
As this is a notebook (can't figure out any other reason), Asus has provided the computer with litteraly the worst piece of crap BIOS I have ever encountered. There is very limited options to do anything, and the few options I have doesn't seem to make any difference when changed. It's actually so few options that I can list them all for you here:
I have probably read through over 100 different forums of people with similar problems. I still have the Samsung V-NAND NVMe disk here so I can try it again. At least that was detected by the Windows Installer.
As far as I've understood when it comes to M.2 SSD' - there is two types: PCIe and SATA. As the SATA won't show up anywhere, I guess my Asus Notebook only supports PCIe. This means that the old drive was a PCIe - but how did Asus make that work with a BIOS only supporting IDE / AHCI? This is so confusing. I just tried to insert the Samsung 970 PRO M.2 again, and run the installer: exact same thing happened. After using Diskpart to convert it to GPT, it runs the install to restart, then goes back to start.
Any help is much appreciated!
- PM-951 and SM-951 ( SAMSUNG/MZHPV512HDGL-00000 )
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