Mobo Won't Boot from M.2 NVMe (Deliver Me from EVO?)

[Giants_1]

I spent an hour with ASUS tech support, who finally promulgated that my new Samsung 960 EVO NVMe M.2 SSD is NOT compatible with my motherboard, ASUS P8Z77-M. However, the list they referenced only showed 2.5" SATA-3 SSDs.

Here's what I did:

bought a Lycom DT-120 M-key adapter for the M.2 NVMe to attach to the PCIe slot and installed it in the PCIe x16 slot (tried both 2.0 and 3.0)

updated BIOS to most current version (2203)

went to Samsung's download page for the 960 EVO

downloaded and installed firmware and NVMe drivers with 960 EVO in PCIe x16 2.0, then reinstalled in the 3.0 slots; but you have to put the 960 in, THEN install drivers)

downloaded and installed its Samsung Migration software; ran and cloned the hard drive

My computer recognizes the 960 EVO (when in PCIe x16 2.0 and 3.0 slots)

Crystal Disk Mark 5 benchmarked the 960 EVO (it's crazy fast!)

BIOS has PCIe boot capability

but the BIOS will NOT recognize the 960 EVO to boot (but it recognizes my DVD and flash drives as bootable devices)

I tried a fresh install with Windows 7 (I used the Microsoft CD for this mobo), but it won't recognize the M.2 drive

Anything else I can try?

Any thoughts as to which M.2 NVMe SSDs might work?

Thanks

 

[Paul NZ]

Do any of the BIOS updates say it supports NVME? If they dont then yup it wont work

 

[Giants_1]

Thanks

The current BIOS version, under CSM, lists booting from PCIe/PCI as an option. It gives two options: Windows UEFI and Other OS. Neither lets the BIOS recognize the Samsung drive as a boobtable.

 

[Paul NZ]

You have to configure the bios first so you can add the NVME drivers. So the BIOS can see it

You may have to do something similar to this (if it does work) to use it. Since Win7 doesnt support NVME natively

 

[USAFRet]

Just use the new NVMe as a secondary drive. The difference you'd see vs a regular SATA SSD is trivial.
NVMe is not the holy grail, unless you're building a whole new system with native NVMe support, and native OS support for that as well.

 

[Giants_1]

"You have to configure the bios first so you can add the NVME drivers. So the BIOS can see it"

Under CSM, the BIOS is set up to recognize PCIe as a boot drive, but it does not recognize the drive as a boot drive

 

[Paul NZ]

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