Discussion M2 NVMe SSD sometimes disappears

[cyberhawkx84]

I found this post:

[SOLVED] - M2 NVMe SSD sometimes disappears | Tom's Hardware Forum (tomshardware.com)

but since it's closed i couldn't answer with the solution

If you have a Gigabyte Z370m Aorus Gaming MB (or similar), and a NVMe M2 SSD (mine is from XPG), and it keeps disappearing, just update your BIOS driver (in my case, version F14b ), it just fixed everything.

 

[Karadjgne]

Bios updates don't always fix. Motherboards don't contain native NVMe drivers, those don't get loaded until Windows install sets the efi etc. The most common issue is CSM being enabled, NVMe boot drives need Windows UEFI in the secure boot, and uefi boot. Otherwise, on cold boots, the drive doesn't get recognised with a adjusted bios, but does after a bios reset to factory defaults.

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 the secure boot option below and make sure it is set to another 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 too. 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, Windows will finish the install. Once you have Windows up and running, shutdown the PC and reconnect your other SATA drives.

Correct NVMe installation procedure, also helps if you choose GPT as the format, especially for 1Tb and larger drives, default is MBR which can have compatibility issues later.

 

[cyberhawkx84]

Bios updates don't always fix. Motherboards don't contain native NVMe drivers, those don't get loaded until Windows install sets the efi etc. The most common issue is CSM being enabled, NVMe boot drives need Windows UEFI in the secure boot, and uefi boot. Otherwise, on cold boots, the drive doesn't get recognised with a adjusted bios, but does after a bios reset to factory defaults.



Correct NVMe installation procedure, also helps if you choose GPT as the format, especially for 1Tb and larger drives, default is MBR which can have compatibility issues later.

I see, the problem in this case is that my SSD was disappearing while active (I have my windows 10 installed on it), i was working here and suddenly the screen goes black with the message "Reboot and Select proper Boot device" and the SSD not showing anymore.

 

[Karadjgne]

That would likely be a bios/firmware issue, often created by Microsoft. Win10 initially was fine, then MS released the 'Creators Edition' update, and threw a wrench in the works as even nvidia drivers were now bunk and caused all sorts of audio/Lan related issues as well. It often takes a bios update to get everything pointed in the right direction instead of looping in circles and causing reboots.

 

[RAP-IT]

@Karadjgne I found this post trough google and experiencing similar issues.
My setup is a Gigabyte X570 AORUS ULTRA (rev. 1.0) motherboard with two m2 ssd's.
The primary is a Gigabyte GP-ASM2NE6200TTTD witch is a 2TB m2 SSD
The secondary is a XPG Spectrix S40G also m2 SSD.

This XPG is the one failing a lot. Windows sometimes can't write to it or tells me it's corrupt. My Dropbox is on it and one time it deleted multiple directories which I had to recover.
This problem began in March. I already bought a second SpectrixS40G, but the problems stay the same.
I have had 6 weeks without issues, but now they are back.

I already upgraded all the motherboard drivers, windows etc. nothing seams to work.
Please let me know if you find a fix.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

@Karadjgne I found this post trough google and experiencing similar issues.
My setup is a Gigabyte X570 AORUS ULTRA (rev. 1.0) motherboard with two m2 ssd's.
The primary is a Gigabyte GP-ASM2NE6200TTTD witch is a 2TB m2 SSD
The secondary is a XPG Spectrix S40G also m2 SSD.

Please start your own thread, you are far more likely to get answers that way than by "hijacking" someone else's thread.

 

[RAP-IT]

Please start your own thread, you are far more likely to get answers that way than by "hijacking" someone else's thread.

Experiencing similar issues with similar hardware, I am sure it has correlation. I'll start my own threat if @Karadjgne did not find a solution yet.